Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "disability"
Blind Author Uses Disability Creating Sci Fi
To begin introducing myself as an author, I thought I’d talk a bit about my blindness. After all, that was one characteristic I gave my main protagonist, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn. My own blindness resulted from a genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa, Malcolm’s came from being ripped across the barrier between the multi-verses. Hence, that’s why so much about genetics in the Beta-Earth Chronicles.
I admit being very surprised by something I’ve noticed in all the reviews posted at Amazon and Goodreads. Some astute folks have pointed out the depth of the books comes from all the social and cultural issues addressed in one way or another—race, class, religion, sex, politics. But little is said about disability. I sense a reluctance out there facing disabilities which I can’t explain.
Which leads to the question—how much of author Wesley Britton is in the character of Malcolm Renbourn? In a way, I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. I’m certain there’s much about him that must reflect who I am. For me, I know there are incidents and experiences from my own life I used in the first three chapters of The Blind Alien. However, from the moment Malcolm escapes across the border into Rhasvi, I’ve always felt he had become his own man, always surprising me thereafter. Perhaps you’ve heard TV actors talk about how they started playing a role before a switch goes off inside them and the actor steps into their character, becomes that character, and goes deeper than reading lines and hitting the marks. Well, that moment happened for Malcolm, in my mind, when Bar sends him north into freedom.
What has this to do with disability? Well, when blindness becomes a central attribute of your being, especially when you’re on a strange planet and absolutely nothing is familiar, what doesn’t blindness impact? I think of one scene where Malcolm meets the blind prophetess, Lorei Caul. While Malcolm became sightless at the age of 35, she was blind from birth. These are very different experiences resulting in very different responses from people. One person has memories of what they once saw, what they lost; the other has no such memories—being blind was all they ever knew. So the individual who became blind later in life has the added confusion of trying to mix and match what they feel and hear with things they remember. From personal experience, I can say those of us who went blind later in life have to go through a process of grief and loss. I drew on this truth quite a bit in The Blind Alien.
For another observation, in book two I had a priestess reveal Malcolm’s eyes perceive blackness. Lorei’s eyes perceive nothing at all. There’s a difference. Malcolm has the awareness of darkness, of something impenetrable filling his visual screens. Lorei has no such awareness and senses nothing missing. Here’s something to ponder—the difference between blackness and nothingness.
What has blindness meant to me, a man who started losing his sight in his mid-twenties? A complex question with a complex answer. Let me try this. Some twenty years or so ago, when being a poet of some small renown was my creative identity, I had a friend who was a Lakota-Sioux Shaman. He looked at me one day and commanded, “Write me a poem about the joys of blindness.” Talk about a writing prompt!
The result was “The Veil.” Reading it again so many years later, I can think of many revisions and changes I could and probably should make. But I think it more honest to present it just as it appeared in Talus & Scree, one of my favorite print magazines of the small-press era.
THE VEIL
When the blindness came, so did the veil
& few look in & those that do
I cannot tell for certain
what I am perceiving. Not light, not dark,
not the common colors shared by most.
I see no body language so speak it poorly.
I see neither smile nor frown so ignore both.
Cannot tell friend from stranger, so the veil
swells like a smoke or fog
around me in protection, confusion,
aloneness while
interdependency grows just as thick and wide
regulated by the whims and schedules of others
living around the cracks of others' good will,
hearing more intentions and promises than fulfillment
or commitment or truth
and grasp the limitations after
the embers of rage finally subside
and accept the moment, what is,
what can be patiently done,
ah, patience against my worse nature,
finally accepting calm Now after the
Disappointment Series and feel the
Ying of happy quiet aloneness without
the being with anyone not just to be alone
the Yang of the female other who
may be illusion, fantasy, nightmare
while I casually, cautiously, distantly
touch others veiled not to be hurt
veiled to expect assault
veiled to be comfortable within
and always aware of the separateness
that lives against my belief in
interconnections
expecting more than is offered
expecting more than can be given
so I create little footnotes in books
and minds and groups and drums and
the image of the invisible man walking
thru the town that did not see him before
and is not looking for him now
as I await the next step
whether shin-cracking or
softer, whether pain or the touch
of my dogs & toys
so I have not answered your question. You wonder what are
The joys of blindness?
Well, the joy of music, but I had that before.
The joy of touch, but that has a powerful yang.
The joy of surprising connections, the nuggets
amongst the dross,
and the surprise of occasionally remembering a color,
a face, place, a possible poem
but mostly I find the happiness in thinking of Buddha,
of little accomplishments, small adventures, never minding
the great promise of youth
and knowing how much I've improved--hell,
I've had so far to go--and how different
I do things now so I must call the happiness
acceptance, letting go of illusions
becoming aware of illusions
de-emphasizing illusions
putting illusions into perspective
knowing my past is my own illusion
shared delusionally with others
whose place in the Now is never certain
and uncertainty has its place, especially in
a cocky man
who came to belief and conviction very slowly,
from the Bible to the nothing to the nothing with
meaning
who expects all to be transitory
as is All
and to cease craving, the source
of suffering, and emphasize service and
gifts, even gifts not wanted or expected,
and see what seeds grow.
----
Follow Wes Britton here at Goodreads!
Remember the 99 cents sale of The Blind Alien while it still lasts!
Beta-Earth website:
https://drwesleybritton.com/
I admit being very surprised by something I’ve noticed in all the reviews posted at Amazon and Goodreads. Some astute folks have pointed out the depth of the books comes from all the social and cultural issues addressed in one way or another—race, class, religion, sex, politics. But little is said about disability. I sense a reluctance out there facing disabilities which I can’t explain.
Which leads to the question—how much of author Wesley Britton is in the character of Malcolm Renbourn? In a way, I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. I’m certain there’s much about him that must reflect who I am. For me, I know there are incidents and experiences from my own life I used in the first three chapters of The Blind Alien. However, from the moment Malcolm escapes across the border into Rhasvi, I’ve always felt he had become his own man, always surprising me thereafter. Perhaps you’ve heard TV actors talk about how they started playing a role before a switch goes off inside them and the actor steps into their character, becomes that character, and goes deeper than reading lines and hitting the marks. Well, that moment happened for Malcolm, in my mind, when Bar sends him north into freedom.
What has this to do with disability? Well, when blindness becomes a central attribute of your being, especially when you’re on a strange planet and absolutely nothing is familiar, what doesn’t blindness impact? I think of one scene where Malcolm meets the blind prophetess, Lorei Caul. While Malcolm became sightless at the age of 35, she was blind from birth. These are very different experiences resulting in very different responses from people. One person has memories of what they once saw, what they lost; the other has no such memories—being blind was all they ever knew. So the individual who became blind later in life has the added confusion of trying to mix and match what they feel and hear with things they remember. From personal experience, I can say those of us who went blind later in life have to go through a process of grief and loss. I drew on this truth quite a bit in The Blind Alien.
For another observation, in book two I had a priestess reveal Malcolm’s eyes perceive blackness. Lorei’s eyes perceive nothing at all. There’s a difference. Malcolm has the awareness of darkness, of something impenetrable filling his visual screens. Lorei has no such awareness and senses nothing missing. Here’s something to ponder—the difference between blackness and nothingness.
What has blindness meant to me, a man who started losing his sight in his mid-twenties? A complex question with a complex answer. Let me try this. Some twenty years or so ago, when being a poet of some small renown was my creative identity, I had a friend who was a Lakota-Sioux Shaman. He looked at me one day and commanded, “Write me a poem about the joys of blindness.” Talk about a writing prompt!
The result was “The Veil.” Reading it again so many years later, I can think of many revisions and changes I could and probably should make. But I think it more honest to present it just as it appeared in Talus & Scree, one of my favorite print magazines of the small-press era.
THE VEIL
When the blindness came, so did the veil
& few look in & those that do
I cannot tell for certain
what I am perceiving. Not light, not dark,
not the common colors shared by most.
I see no body language so speak it poorly.
I see neither smile nor frown so ignore both.
Cannot tell friend from stranger, so the veil
swells like a smoke or fog
around me in protection, confusion,
aloneness while
interdependency grows just as thick and wide
regulated by the whims and schedules of others
living around the cracks of others' good will,
hearing more intentions and promises than fulfillment
or commitment or truth
and grasp the limitations after
the embers of rage finally subside
and accept the moment, what is,
what can be patiently done,
ah, patience against my worse nature,
finally accepting calm Now after the
Disappointment Series and feel the
Ying of happy quiet aloneness without
the being with anyone not just to be alone
the Yang of the female other who
may be illusion, fantasy, nightmare
while I casually, cautiously, distantly
touch others veiled not to be hurt
veiled to expect assault
veiled to be comfortable within
and always aware of the separateness
that lives against my belief in
interconnections
expecting more than is offered
expecting more than can be given
so I create little footnotes in books
and minds and groups and drums and
the image of the invisible man walking
thru the town that did not see him before
and is not looking for him now
as I await the next step
whether shin-cracking or
softer, whether pain or the touch
of my dogs & toys
so I have not answered your question. You wonder what are
The joys of blindness?
Well, the joy of music, but I had that before.
The joy of touch, but that has a powerful yang.
The joy of surprising connections, the nuggets
amongst the dross,
and the surprise of occasionally remembering a color,
a face, place, a possible poem
but mostly I find the happiness in thinking of Buddha,
of little accomplishments, small adventures, never minding
the great promise of youth
and knowing how much I've improved--hell,
I've had so far to go--and how different
I do things now so I must call the happiness
acceptance, letting go of illusions
becoming aware of illusions
de-emphasizing illusions
putting illusions into perspective
knowing my past is my own illusion
shared delusionally with others
whose place in the Now is never certain
and uncertainty has its place, especially in
a cocky man
who came to belief and conviction very slowly,
from the Bible to the nothing to the nothing with
meaning
who expects all to be transitory
as is All
and to cease craving, the source
of suffering, and emphasize service and
gifts, even gifts not wanted or expected,
and see what seeds grow.
----
Follow Wes Britton here at Goodreads!
Remember the 99 cents sale of The Blind Alien while it still lasts!
Beta-Earth website:
https://drwesleybritton.com/
Creating a Multi-Verse, Part 1
Creating a Multi-Verse, Part 1
By Dr. Wesley Britton
This article first appeared at Book Likes.com on Feb. 8, 2018:
http://wesleyabritton.booklikes.com/
Truth be known, book six of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, Return to Alpha, is a book I never intended to write. Truth be known, the same is the story for book five, The Third Earth. So what inspired their creations?
To set the stage for these tales, we got to go back just about twenty years when most of my writing energies were focused on researching and writing my first four non-fiction books, Spy Television (2003), Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film (2005), Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book of Movie Espionage (2006), and The Encyclopedia of TV Spies (2009). Along the way, I generated so many articles, essays, reviews, and interviews that my first website,
www.spywise.net
contains enough material for several books as well. I’m still proud of that website and encourage all spy buffs—whether of literary spies, historical spies, or spies on TV or film to check it out.
At the same time, I had a job where I had too many empty hours to burn in my office at Harrisburg Area Community College. I don’t remember exactly when, but one afternoon, I began to daydream and let my mind drift to stories set on an alternate earth. To be honest, I thought I was just entertaining myself. I thought I had no gift for writing fiction. I had no intention of writing down my fantasies.
Still, the Chronicles began when I posed two questions to myself. What, I wondered, would happen to an ordinary man who suddenly finds himself captive on an alternate earth after his captors have blinded him? How could a blind man adapt and survive when he understands nothing he hears, feels, or experiences after losing his sight?
My imagination expanded from this starting point when I started thinking about what the blind alien might go through on this new planet. I wondered what might make him so valuable that scientists and world leaders might want to forever ensure his captivity? It couldn’t be anything he brought with him from our planet. His captors could simply take any object from him. Could he have special knowledge? Perhaps, although I admit I couldn’t think of anything.
Then it struck me—the Plague-With-No-Name, an ancient disease that kills three out of every four babies their first year on Beta-Earth. This might mean my character’s DNA could be of special interest. Might his body contain the cure to a plague that defined a world?
Then the idea came to me to start spinning out a tale that ultimately filled out a 20-year arc over four books. I knew I needed more than the plague to keep keeping my main character, Malcolm Renbourn, off balance. From the disaster at crater Bergarten in book 1 to conflicts with international leaders in books 2, 3, and 4, not to mention conflicts within the polygamous Renbourn tribe throughout, as well as inner turmoils within a man who slowly, very slowly came to accept new customs and ways of being, I threw everything I could think of at Malcolm and his family. After all, I wanted to blunt accusations that a man with so many wives was little more than an elaborate male fantasy. Considering what happens to Malcolm over the years, I suspect many male readers would think very long and very hard before deciding they’d like to trade places with Malcolm Renbourn of Alpha-Earth.
Of course, converting a long, elaborate daydream into stories that would hopefully interest readers took quite a few other levels of creativity to make it happen. I’ll get into that in part two of this blog’s anatomy of the Beta-Earth Chronicles.
Stay tuned—
By Dr. Wesley Britton
This article first appeared at Book Likes.com on Feb. 8, 2018:
http://wesleyabritton.booklikes.com/
Truth be known, book six of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, Return to Alpha, is a book I never intended to write. Truth be known, the same is the story for book five, The Third Earth. So what inspired their creations?
To set the stage for these tales, we got to go back just about twenty years when most of my writing energies were focused on researching and writing my first four non-fiction books, Spy Television (2003), Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film (2005), Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book of Movie Espionage (2006), and The Encyclopedia of TV Spies (2009). Along the way, I generated so many articles, essays, reviews, and interviews that my first website,
www.spywise.net
contains enough material for several books as well. I’m still proud of that website and encourage all spy buffs—whether of literary spies, historical spies, or spies on TV or film to check it out.
At the same time, I had a job where I had too many empty hours to burn in my office at Harrisburg Area Community College. I don’t remember exactly when, but one afternoon, I began to daydream and let my mind drift to stories set on an alternate earth. To be honest, I thought I was just entertaining myself. I thought I had no gift for writing fiction. I had no intention of writing down my fantasies.
Still, the Chronicles began when I posed two questions to myself. What, I wondered, would happen to an ordinary man who suddenly finds himself captive on an alternate earth after his captors have blinded him? How could a blind man adapt and survive when he understands nothing he hears, feels, or experiences after losing his sight?
My imagination expanded from this starting point when I started thinking about what the blind alien might go through on this new planet. I wondered what might make him so valuable that scientists and world leaders might want to forever ensure his captivity? It couldn’t be anything he brought with him from our planet. His captors could simply take any object from him. Could he have special knowledge? Perhaps, although I admit I couldn’t think of anything.
Then it struck me—the Plague-With-No-Name, an ancient disease that kills three out of every four babies their first year on Beta-Earth. This might mean my character’s DNA could be of special interest. Might his body contain the cure to a plague that defined a world?
Then the idea came to me to start spinning out a tale that ultimately filled out a 20-year arc over four books. I knew I needed more than the plague to keep keeping my main character, Malcolm Renbourn, off balance. From the disaster at crater Bergarten in book 1 to conflicts with international leaders in books 2, 3, and 4, not to mention conflicts within the polygamous Renbourn tribe throughout, as well as inner turmoils within a man who slowly, very slowly came to accept new customs and ways of being, I threw everything I could think of at Malcolm and his family. After all, I wanted to blunt accusations that a man with so many wives was little more than an elaborate male fantasy. Considering what happens to Malcolm over the years, I suspect many male readers would think very long and very hard before deciding they’d like to trade places with Malcolm Renbourn of Alpha-Earth.
Of course, converting a long, elaborate daydream into stories that would hopefully interest readers took quite a few other levels of creativity to make it happen. I’ll get into that in part two of this blog’s anatomy of the Beta-Earth Chronicles.
Stay tuned—
When Blindness Becomes a Writing Tool
When Blindness Becomes a Writing Tool
By Dr. Wesley Britton
(This post first appeared at my blog at Book Likes.com today at:
http://wesleyabritton.booklikes.com/p...
Last week, I had very different intentions about what I was going to say in this blog post. I planned to write about how my own disability, my blindness due to the genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa, had helped shape my main protagonist of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, Malcolm Renbourn. After all, the launching point for the entire series was my wondering what would happen to a human who is blinded when he’s drug through a barrier separating the multi-verse and taken to an alternate earth. How could a blind man turned into a blind alien cope with a planet where he doesn’t understand the language, see anything at all around him, and adapt to a culture completely different from anything he has ever known?
But rather than delve into those matters today, I thought I’d share with you a writing lesson I learned this weekend. For my ghost-loving grandson, we went to see the movie Winchester for his birthday. Unless you’re blind yourself or have gone to the movies with someone who is blind, you probably don’t know about the headsets that provide audio descriptions of whatever movie you’re seeing.
I’ve been relying on audio descriptions for years, but at Winchester I was really struck with the depth of details I was hearing. Perhaps that’s because the mansion where the story is set is so strange that the audio track had to be very vivid. The narrator had to describe long hallways with boarded up rooms and staircases that went nowhere. He had to describe strange faces and appearances by spirits that weren’t human. Well, at least not alive.
But in addition to the weird, the narrator also had to describe normal curtains blowing in windows, what items were on tables or cabinets, what things were hung on the walls or dangled from the chandeliers. He had to describe what the characters looked like, what they were wearing, and what their expressions and movements conveyed to viewers. If they looked pensive, that’s the adjective he used. Or aggressive, resolute, all manner of terms on the emotional spectrum.
In the theatre, blind viewers got every scene and setting painted for us in colors, lighting, cleanliness, atmosphere, sizes, you name it. In short, the audio track had to do just what we authors need to do for readers on the printed page.
So I’m proposing that a useful exercise for authors is to pretend we’re creating a narration for an audio description when we’re creating our settings, characters, meals, movements, anything visual a reader would want to see in their minds. For a blind writer, this was a good lesson as I’m naturally not visually oriented. For all the things I needed to describe in my books, I had to rely on very old memories or emulate imagery from my reading.
Since my stories are set on a different planet, I didn’t have to try to capture any recognizable places. Instead, I had the challenge of world-building, that is, crafting settings largely from scratch. To make them believable, recognizable or not, the descriptions had to be vivid and multi-sensory. Whether I was successful or not, that’s your judgement to make. Whether you’re successful or not in your own writing, well, why not consider how a blind movie-goer would experience the time and place where your characters are doing their things?
By Dr. Wesley Britton
(This post first appeared at my blog at Book Likes.com today at:
http://wesleyabritton.booklikes.com/p...
Last week, I had very different intentions about what I was going to say in this blog post. I planned to write about how my own disability, my blindness due to the genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa, had helped shape my main protagonist of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, Malcolm Renbourn. After all, the launching point for the entire series was my wondering what would happen to a human who is blinded when he’s drug through a barrier separating the multi-verse and taken to an alternate earth. How could a blind man turned into a blind alien cope with a planet where he doesn’t understand the language, see anything at all around him, and adapt to a culture completely different from anything he has ever known?
But rather than delve into those matters today, I thought I’d share with you a writing lesson I learned this weekend. For my ghost-loving grandson, we went to see the movie Winchester for his birthday. Unless you’re blind yourself or have gone to the movies with someone who is blind, you probably don’t know about the headsets that provide audio descriptions of whatever movie you’re seeing.
I’ve been relying on audio descriptions for years, but at Winchester I was really struck with the depth of details I was hearing. Perhaps that’s because the mansion where the story is set is so strange that the audio track had to be very vivid. The narrator had to describe long hallways with boarded up rooms and staircases that went nowhere. He had to describe strange faces and appearances by spirits that weren’t human. Well, at least not alive.
But in addition to the weird, the narrator also had to describe normal curtains blowing in windows, what items were on tables or cabinets, what things were hung on the walls or dangled from the chandeliers. He had to describe what the characters looked like, what they were wearing, and what their expressions and movements conveyed to viewers. If they looked pensive, that’s the adjective he used. Or aggressive, resolute, all manner of terms on the emotional spectrum.
In the theatre, blind viewers got every scene and setting painted for us in colors, lighting, cleanliness, atmosphere, sizes, you name it. In short, the audio track had to do just what we authors need to do for readers on the printed page.
So I’m proposing that a useful exercise for authors is to pretend we’re creating a narration for an audio description when we’re creating our settings, characters, meals, movements, anything visual a reader would want to see in their minds. For a blind writer, this was a good lesson as I’m naturally not visually oriented. For all the things I needed to describe in my books, I had to rely on very old memories or emulate imagery from my reading.
Since my stories are set on a different planet, I didn’t have to try to capture any recognizable places. Instead, I had the challenge of world-building, that is, crafting settings largely from scratch. To make them believable, recognizable or not, the descriptions had to be vivid and multi-sensory. Whether I was successful or not, that’s your judgement to make. Whether you’re successful or not in your own writing, well, why not consider how a blind movie-goer would experience the time and place where your characters are doing their things?
Book Review: Blind Gambit: A BameLit novel by Jon Cronshaw
Blind Gambit: A GameLit novel
Jon Cronshaw
Print Length: 275 pages
Publisher: No World Press (May 5, 2018)
Publication Date: May 5, 2018
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B079QL5CCL
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Gambit-G...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
On one hand, Jon Cronshaw is a younger author than I am and he's far more familiar with the world of gaming than I will ever be. So if you too are into video games and "game lit," than you're a prime target reader for Blind Gambit.
From a different perspective, I too carry the retinitis pigmentosa gene that results in blindness just like the main character of Brian in Cronshaw's novel. So does the author himself. While I was older and no longer living at home when the onset kicked in for me, from the very beginning of the story, I recognized many events in Brian's personal life as well as many of his reactions to what is happening to him as his sight erodes in the physical world. I remember so many events and conversations in my life that mirrors what Brian goes through as he tries to maintain independence, downplay his disability as much as he can, and find the ways to interact with friends and family as his personal identity changes during the process of going blind. As he admits in his afterword, much of the book can be called a fictionalized memoir.
In fact, we have two themes traveling on parallel lines through the book. One is in virtual reality where Brian can see what's going on in the game of Gambit because he has a chip that allows his avatar, Neuro, to watch what his three teammates, FragQueen, Harley, and Socko are doing on the battlefields against zombies while he proves to be the worst sniper in game world. At the same time, a hacker is going through Gambit destroying every team and game he, she, or it can for unknown reasons. Brian, however, is immune to the hacker's weapons due to that chip. So, on the outside, he's being trained in independent living and how to have a relationship with a girl. A real one. In VR, he is trained in how to combat the hacker by learning strategy, create unique weapons out of ordinary items, and learn how to uncover the hacker's true identity.
I admit, for a long time I wondered why I should care about the destruction of virtual avatars. Not exactly the sort of carnage living beings should worry about. So are there any consequences of the hacker's killing spree in the real world beyond headaches players suffer after leaving the game? At the same time, when Brian isn't hooked up to VR, his often over protective mother talks him into working with blind support groups so he can learn how to live with his disability. Stubborn and resisting most such efforts, Brian isn't a quick study in any of his quests. In the real world, he ends up being bruised and wounded as he tries out a number of activities other blind folks can do. Along the way,
Without question, the primary readership for Blind Gambit will be YA readers who are into gaming. But I really hope a wider audience will include those who might gain some sensitivity and insight not just regarding the disability of blindness, but some understanding of the emotional turmoils the disabled go through as, in this case, we lose the sense of sight.
As with pretty much every e-book published these days, readers can find out more about Jon Cronshaw's worlds by reading his afterword and signing up for his newsletter. The adventures don't have to end when you finish Blind Gambit.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XAAH
Jon Cronshaw
Print Length: 275 pages
Publisher: No World Press (May 5, 2018)
Publication Date: May 5, 2018
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B079QL5CCL
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Gambit-G...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
On one hand, Jon Cronshaw is a younger author than I am and he's far more familiar with the world of gaming than I will ever be. So if you too are into video games and "game lit," than you're a prime target reader for Blind Gambit.
From a different perspective, I too carry the retinitis pigmentosa gene that results in blindness just like the main character of Brian in Cronshaw's novel. So does the author himself. While I was older and no longer living at home when the onset kicked in for me, from the very beginning of the story, I recognized many events in Brian's personal life as well as many of his reactions to what is happening to him as his sight erodes in the physical world. I remember so many events and conversations in my life that mirrors what Brian goes through as he tries to maintain independence, downplay his disability as much as he can, and find the ways to interact with friends and family as his personal identity changes during the process of going blind. As he admits in his afterword, much of the book can be called a fictionalized memoir.
In fact, we have two themes traveling on parallel lines through the book. One is in virtual reality where Brian can see what's going on in the game of Gambit because he has a chip that allows his avatar, Neuro, to watch what his three teammates, FragQueen, Harley, and Socko are doing on the battlefields against zombies while he proves to be the worst sniper in game world. At the same time, a hacker is going through Gambit destroying every team and game he, she, or it can for unknown reasons. Brian, however, is immune to the hacker's weapons due to that chip. So, on the outside, he's being trained in independent living and how to have a relationship with a girl. A real one. In VR, he is trained in how to combat the hacker by learning strategy, create unique weapons out of ordinary items, and learn how to uncover the hacker's true identity.
I admit, for a long time I wondered why I should care about the destruction of virtual avatars. Not exactly the sort of carnage living beings should worry about. So are there any consequences of the hacker's killing spree in the real world beyond headaches players suffer after leaving the game? At the same time, when Brian isn't hooked up to VR, his often over protective mother talks him into working with blind support groups so he can learn how to live with his disability. Stubborn and resisting most such efforts, Brian isn't a quick study in any of his quests. In the real world, he ends up being bruised and wounded as he tries out a number of activities other blind folks can do. Along the way,
Without question, the primary readership for Blind Gambit will be YA readers who are into gaming. But I really hope a wider audience will include those who might gain some sensitivity and insight not just regarding the disability of blindness, but some understanding of the emotional turmoils the disabled go through as, in this case, we lose the sense of sight.
As with pretty much every e-book published these days, readers can find out more about Jon Cronshaw's worlds by reading his afterword and signing up for his newsletter. The adventures don't have to end when you finish Blind Gambit.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on July 1, 2019:
https://waa.ai/XAAH
Vote for me! And then vote again!
Help Wes Britton earn $500.00 by going to the "Show Us Your Tech" photo contest sponsored by the Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Foundation and click on the vote button below my picture. No need to sign in or leave your name or anything like that. Right now, I'm the first photo you'll see:
Oh, unlike other voting rules, you are encouraged to vote for me every 24 hours, or at least wait 24 hours before voting again. And then again. And then again . . .
https://patf.us/2020-photo-contest/
Oh, unlike other voting rules, you are encouraged to vote for me every 24 hours, or at least wait 24 hours before voting again. And then again. And then again . . .
https://patf.us/2020-photo-contest/
More on sci-fi and disabilities
A few days ago, I posted here a reply from a reader responding to my essay on sci-fi and disability in my November newsletter.
Well, Keith had more to say so here are a few more titles he suggested that might interest some of you:
. . . These both deal (in different ways) with disabilities. The first is very unusual, and is probably hard for a lot of people to read due to the way it is written. The author is William Horwood and the book is Skallagrig. It deals with cerebral palsy, and if I remember rightly, one of his children has the condition. The story is on several levels including someone writing a computer game, and collecting stories from asylums about the character known as Skallagrig. The different levels all come together in the end.
The other book is by Thom Satterlee, called The Stages. It deals with a character who has Aspergers. One of his work colleagues is murdered. The story masquerades as an investigation by this character into the murder, but it is actually about him and his life.
I'm sure I am not selling any of these books particularly well, but given we were talking about disability in books, it seemed worthwhile flagging them up. The Genevieve Lenard books by Estelle Ryan are lighter and a form of crime series, but could be worth a look.
Thanks Keith! Some folks out there might indeed want to check out these titles (after they investigate the Beta-Earth Chronicles, of course--)
Don't forget our December newsletter is coming out next week with some new cool stuff, so if you want to be first on the block to check it out, sign up here--
https://drwesleybritton.com/newsletter/
(If any of y'all would like to contribute to this discussion, please drop us a line here and carry on the chat--)
Well, Keith had more to say so here are a few more titles he suggested that might interest some of you:
. . . These both deal (in different ways) with disabilities. The first is very unusual, and is probably hard for a lot of people to read due to the way it is written. The author is William Horwood and the book is Skallagrig. It deals with cerebral palsy, and if I remember rightly, one of his children has the condition. The story is on several levels including someone writing a computer game, and collecting stories from asylums about the character known as Skallagrig. The different levels all come together in the end.
The other book is by Thom Satterlee, called The Stages. It deals with a character who has Aspergers. One of his work colleagues is murdered. The story masquerades as an investigation by this character into the murder, but it is actually about him and his life.
I'm sure I am not selling any of these books particularly well, but given we were talking about disability in books, it seemed worthwhile flagging them up. The Genevieve Lenard books by Estelle Ryan are lighter and a form of crime series, but could be worth a look.
Thanks Keith! Some folks out there might indeed want to check out these titles (after they investigate the Beta-Earth Chronicles, of course--)
Don't forget our December newsletter is coming out next week with some new cool stuff, so if you want to be first on the block to check it out, sign up here--
https://drwesleybritton.com/newsletter/
(If any of y'all would like to contribute to this discussion, please drop us a line here and carry on the chat--)
Wesley Britton's Blog
This just came in. My favorite two sentences of all time!
“The Blind Alien is a story with a highly original concept, fascinating characters, and not-too-subtle but truthful allegories. Don’t let the ...more
“The Blind Alien is a story with a highly original concept, fascinating characters, and not-too-subtle but truthful allegories. Don’t let the ...more
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