Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 117

FF: Art and Writing Intertwined

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This week, again, purely by accident, art and writing as elements entered into a fair amount of my reading material.

For one, the German edition of Fire Season arrived!  I really like how Stephanie was interpreted for this one, although Climbs Quickly looks like a taxidermied lynx.  Probably just smoke inhalation.

Just a reminder…  The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

Persephone Claims Flammenzeit!

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of descriptions or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Roadsouls by Betsy James.  Manuscript of a forthcoming novel.  I liked and will try to remember to mention when it is released.  Journey is more internal than external, but no less real – and author uses her background as an artist to very good effect.

Tortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce.  Audiobook. A short story collection, containing material from between 2005-2012.  Enjoyed, especially the last story, which is neither SF nor F…

Gryphon & Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence.  Maybe because Betsy James is also a professional artist, I was reminded of this book (and its sequels) which are as much art as book.  There’s a weird appeal to reading someone else’s mail.

In Progress:

The Diviners by Libba Bray.  Audiobook.  Cultural contradictions of “Roaring Twenties” well-evoked.  Horror elements creeping in…

The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Conclude by Nick Bantock.  The first book made a sequel seem impossible, so this fascinates.

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper.  This came up in Alan and my discussions, so I decided to read.  No.  I hadn’t read it before… despite the theme,which is one I have also addressed in my fiction!

Also:

After a long time away, I decided to get back into bead work.  I have a weakness for projects that involve very small beads.  I’ve been delving into myriad books, because no one seems to include all I want to know about a stitch.  Assumptions are SO dangerous for a writer!

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TT: Judging On Their Own Terms

ALAN: Jane, you were about to tell me the story of Talli and Great Cthulhu as an example of how cats have excellent memories. My own experiences with cats suggest that they do indeed remember things very well, so I’m curious to see how your experience stacks up with mine.

JANE: Right!  Here goes…

Elephant Gives a Wave

Jim and I went to visit my dad in Colorado, bringing with us our cat Talli.  Talli was initially quite pleased with the new location, wandering around and exploring freely in company with another of our cats, Arawn.  That is, until he walked into the living room, which had a very high ceiling with a fan spinning lazily at the top.

Talli panicked, ran back into the kitchen, then dove under the table.  Eventually, we coaxed him out, but he would not go back into the living room.  What puzzled us was that he picked as his “safe place” the mud room (that’s what we call an entry room meant for taking off dirty shoes and things) off the kitchen, even though he could have gone into several other rooms without passing near Great Cthulhu.

The mud room was not at all a comfortable place, but Talli stayed crouched on the threshold for hours, even though his companion cat, Arawn, had gone elsewhere and we were right there in the kitchen.

Sometime later, my brother, Graydon, arrived, bringing with him his dog, Otis.  Otis was not a small dog.  He was a mutt with some Chow and Labrador retriever in him.  Talli had only met Otis once before, when Gray had brought him along on a visit to New Mexico well over a year before.  However, Talli and Otis had made friends, in part because Otis let Talli eat his kibbles.

When Talli saw Otis, he left the threshold of the mud room where he’d been crouched all this time and, tail held high, made a beeline for Otis.

It was evident that not only had Talli remembered Otis, he’d remembered his scent.  Dad only let Otis into the mudroom of the house, so the room must have smelled strongly of him.  When frightened, Talli had gone to the room that smelled like his friend.

ALAN: Did Talli get over his fear of Cthulhu?

JANE: Yes, in fact, he did, but only after spending some time with Otis.  Who knows?  Maybe Otis told him the house was safe.

ALAN: I don’t want to apply human concepts to animal behaviour. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of anthropomorphism. Nevertheless I do think that animals and humans share an understanding of some quite subtle ideas.

For example, I’m quite convinced that animals can understand how numbers work. I remember as a child going to see Cuddles the Killer Whale at Flamingo Park Zoo in North Yorkshire. He had an outdoor pool and spectators sat on carefully arranged chairs around the pool to watch him do his stuff. I watched him swimming round and round and round, and every so often he would stop and peek over the edge of the pool at the audience. And then he’d go swimming round and round and round again. Eventually, when he decided that there were now enough people to make his next trick worthwhile, he made an almighty leap out of the pool, high into the air, and then he crashed back down into the water sending a huge spray out over the audience, all of whom shrieked and screamed and ran and shook themselves. And there was Cuddles, peering at them over the edge of the pool, laughing his head off…

He used to do that every day. He never tired of the joke. But he wouldn’t do it if there weren’t enough people to splash…

JANE: Oh!  That’s great! Many people persist in viewing animals as organic computers, with “instinct” as the guiding software.  In this descriptive template, play behavior is simply training for adult roles as hunters or to run faster and jump farther.

However, Cuddles is far from alone in liking to play practical jokes.  Oddly enough, my story about such also involves water.

Back when I was in graduate school, I’d often walk over to the Bronx Zoo during my break.  One of my favorite places to go was the snow leopard to watch the kittens.  This was in the day when many of the enclosures were the old-fashioned concrete floor/iron bar sort.  The snow leopard’s water dish was a large steel basin bolted to the bars.

On this particular day, Kitten One was busily sloshing the water in the basin back and forth with one paw – actually, he had his foreleg in, almost to the shoulder.  Back and forth, back and forth, he went, spilling some water as he played, apparently unaware that his brother was carefully stalking him, using for cover the large deadfall tree that was the centerpiece of the enclosure.

Slosh, slosh goes Kitten One.  Creep, creep goes Kitten Two.  Then Kitten Two freezes, makes that ridiculous butt-wiggle that cats do before they leap and springs into the air.  At which point Kitten One, slides gracefully to the side so that Kitten Two lands squarely in the middle of the puddle Kitten One had been creating – now quite clearly with the intent of catching his brother in the trap.  Kitten Two slid across the floor, before romping back in soggy fury to pounce his gleeful brother.  I was very sorry to leave…

ALAN: Oh that’s lovely! When my cat Bess was a kitten she used to put one paw into her water bowl while she drank from it. Presumably she was holding the water in place to make sure that it didn’t run away. She still has a fascination with water and she will chase the spray from the hosepipe when Robin waters the garden.

Something else I saw at a zoo has always puzzled me. The elephants at this zoo lived on an island with a deep (dry) moat all around it so that they couldn’t get off. Notices saying “Do Not Feed The Elephants” were bolted to the wall of the moat. On the day that I was there, the elephants were standing at the edge of the enclosure with their trunks dangling down into the moat. And every single elephant was standing above one of the notices, and every trunk was dangling in front of the notice, obscuring it so that it couldn’t be read.

I refuse to believe that was a coincidence. But I have no idea how (or if) the animals connected the notices with the lack of treats in their life. I’d love to know exactly what it was that I was seeing there.

JANE: Funny…  I’m not sure if elephants can read, but animals do understand language, including – or perhaps I should say, “especially” – body language.  I’ve noticed this many time in my encounters with the wolves of Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary.  One example particularly stands out.

Back when I was still writing the Firekeeper books, I’d often invite Wild Spirit to attend book events with one of their “ambassador” wolves.  At one event, my friend Pati Nagle and I were doing an event together.  Her husband, Chris, was there in full Civil War military costume.  (Her book was one of her excellent “Civil War in the West” novels.)

Anyhow, as we were winding down, Chris commented to Leyton, the WSWF representative, that Raven the wolf was apparently afraid of him and wondered if this might be because of his odd clothing.

Leyton said, “No.  He thinks you’re afraid of him, and at these events, if he thinks someone is afraid of him, he stays back.”  Chris replied, “But I’m not afraid of him at all!”  Leyton nodded.  “Maybe not, but your body language is telling Raven differently.”  Chris asked what he should do to change the message he was sending.  Leyton gave him step by step instructions and Chris, who is a fine performer, immediately followed them.  As soon as Chris finished adjusting his stance, Raven rose from where he’d been sitting and went over to give Chris a friendly sniff.

ALAN: What did he have to alter to make Raven accept him?

JANE: It’s been a lot of years, so I don’t remember precisely, but I know one element was how he was holding his arms.

ALAN: My dog Jake is very sensitive to body language – and the position of my arms seems to be particularly important in getting messages across to him. If I point fiercely (yes, it can be done) he knows that he has to stop what he’s doing and go where I’m pointing. I don’t have to say a word, the body language does it all.

JANE: That’s neat.  My cats also understand a fairly wide variety of gestures.  We’re fairly certain that they also know each other’s names, since they respond to their own, but not to someone else’s.  Well, with the exception of Kwahe’e…  He’ll come to someone else’s name if he thinks he can poach their food.

We probably could go on telling each other animal stories forever, but let’s stop here and see what our readers can tell us about their experiences with Earth’s other people – the animals.

Curiosities Now Available!

Back in September of 2013, I asked whether folks would be more interested in seeing another of my out-of-print novels made available or a short story collection.  To my surprise, there turned out to be a lot of interest in a short story collection.

At Last!

Aside: The comments on the post were only part of the feedback I used to make my decision.  Additionally, many people asked me if I would consider putting together a book on writing.  I decided I’d really enjoy doing that, and so Wanderings on Writing became the project I tackled whenever I had free time.

Now, at last, Curiosities is (or should be in the very near future) available as an e-book for Kindle, Nook, i-Tunes, Google Play, and Kobo.

For those of you who, like me, prefer a “real” book, Curiosities is also available from Amazon Create Space.

Curiosities includes nineteen short stories, ranging from my first published piece “Cheesecake” (1990) to 2014’s “Born from Memory.”  Although all the stories included were published elsewhere, some have been nearly impossible to find for many years.  Each story is accompanied by a short afterpiece talking about some aspect of the story.  I might tell what inspired the story or talk about influences or just offer some odd bit of trivia.  There’s also an original introduction discussing how I came to select these particular stories out of the sixty-some I’d had published to that point.

The cover art by Rowan Derrick is a photo montage meant to represent the cluttered interior of my brain.  Many of the pieces included were taken from my office.  Others were Rowan’s.  You can have fun trying to guess which are which.

Why did it take nearly two years for Curiosities to be completed?  Well, mostly because I wrote a lot of other things as well.  Artemis Awakening and Artemis Invaded came out.  In fact, a good deal of Artemis Invaded was written at this time.  Fire Season (written with David Weber) was released.  The previously mentioned Wanderings on Writing also took a good deal of time and effort.

I also wrote a variety of shorter projects, some of which – like “The Hermit and the Jackalopes” in S.M. Stirling’s anthology The Change: Stories of Downfall and Rebirth, and “The Button Witch” on Urban Fantasy.com – are now available.  Others, like “The Headless Fluteplayer” (a prequel to my and Roger Zelazny’s Lord Demon) and “Deception on Gryphon” (featuring Stephanie Harrington and associates) are yet to be released.

We did hope to have Curiosities completed for release at Bubonicon in August of 2015, but various small glitches kept cropping up.  The latest was just this week…  Emily Mah Tippets, who did the book conversion and design, called me on Monday to let me know that…  Oh!  Never mind.  Suffice to say that long before the end, we both decided the project had gremlins.

But it’s out!  I hope you enjoy it.  It was a good trip down memory lane for me.  Now it’s time to look to the future.

FF: A Change of Plans

Although I love audiobooks, sometimes I can’t stand a reader’s interpretation of the material.  That happened to me this week.

Plans Take Flight!

For those of you new to this post…  The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of descriptions or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross.  I enjoyed.  Look for a WW interview with Dave Gross before the end of October!

In Progress:

Roadsouls by Betsy James.  Manuscript of a forthcoming novel.

Tortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce.  Audiobook. A short story collection, containing material from between 2005-2012.  I’m about half-way through and enjoying.

An Important Side Note:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik.  Audiobook. This is the one I had to give up on as an audiobook, because the reader was driving me completely nuts.  I’ll be finishing as a “regular” book as soon as I can slot it in!

TT: Our Planet is Full of Aliens!

JANE: For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been chatting about aliens.  So, have we covered all the bases on types of aliens?

ALAN: No, not quite. We actually live on a planet that is full of aliens. Animals are completely alien to us in the same sense that SF aliens are. They think differently; they react differently; they have different priorities.

Flossy, Mephitis, and Harlequin

JANE: I’m the last person who would disagree with you about that.  As I mentioned a while back, my novel Marks of Our Brothers is rooted in my awareness that how humans view animal intelligence is rarely based on judging them on their own terms.  All too often, how “intelligent” an animal is thought to be is based on how human they seem or at least how well they can mimic human behavior.

I’d rather view animal behavior on their own terms and leave the question of “smarter” or “dumber” out of it entirely.

ALAN: Yes, indeed. And if SF teaches us anything about aliens, it teaches us to judge them on their own criteria rather than to try shoehorning them into ours. Though having said that, I think there’s a definite spectrum of intelligence – even animals of the same species can be “smart” or “dumb” in comparison with each other.

JANE: I agree…  We both like animals and share our homes with them.  I’m sure if we were visiting over coffee, we’d have fun telling each other about the interesting things our co-residents have done.  Typing out stories isn’t quite the same, but we can give it a try.

Let me start with the story of how Jim misinterpreted Flossie the guinea pig.  That way we’ll start off with a creature that most humans would consider at the “bottom” of the spectrum.

ALAN: Tell me more! How do you misinterpret a guinea pig? Enquiring minds want to know…

JANE: We have several guinea pigs.  When the weather permits, we put them outside in a hutch.  We always bring them in at night, though.  One day, Jim commented to me that Flossie really didn’t like coming in.  “She’ll run to the side of the hutch, then try to climb the side to get away from me.”

Now, I’d noticed the same behavior but, knowing guinea pigs (Jim had only been living with them for about five years at that point), and knowing they don’t really climb, I had interpreted it differently.

“She’s not running away.  She’s helping you to pick her up.  She’s noticed that you always scoop her around the middle, then lift.  She’s making it easier for you.”

And, after observing, Jim agreed I was right.  Over time, Flossie taught her “trick” to her hutchmates, Mephitis and Shandy.  The habit did not pass on to the next generation.  (Flossie, Shandy, and Mephitis have all gone on.)  However, Usagi, one of our current residents, does not like being held around her middle.  She’s perfectly fine with being picked up – only on her own terms.  If you hold a hand level in front of her, she will let you slide it under her and even walk on.  Again, her roommate, Silver, has picked up the trick, so we have two guinea pigs who behave rather like large, furry parakeets.

ALAN: Do they perch on your shoulder and say “Pieces of eight!” as well?

JANE: No!  They say “pieces of carrot,” though…

ALAN: It’s clear to me that animals can, and do, think about the situations they find themselves in, then work out a plan to achieve their goals. We took our dog Jake to the park where he can run freely off the lead. There’s a small river running through the park which many of the dogs like to swim in. Jake hadn’t learned how to swim yet. He was happy to paddle in the shallows, but he wouldn’t go out of his depth.

However, one day he was playing chase with another dog and he got so involved in the game that he chased the dog through the water, all the way across the river to the other side. Once the excitement died down, Jake realised that he had a problem. He was on one side of the river and we were on the other side! How on earth was he going to get back to us?

He stood there for a moment, and then he looked both right and left, decided which bridge was the closest, and then he raced to that bridge, came across the river and rejoined us. I was very impressed. Naturally, he got a treat for being such a clever boy. I don’t think many dogs could have solved that problem so quickly and so elegantly.

These days he can swim like a fish, so the problem has now completely gone away and he criss-crosses the river willy-nilly.

JANE: And doubtless shakes water all over you when he arrives.  Oh, well, everything can’t be perfect.

One thing that really bothers me about tests meant to judge animal “intelligence” are those that involve running mazes.  Often these tests are used on creatures that wouldn’t perform a task like this in normal life.  Moreover, how well an animal “remembers” a maze is then used to judge length of memory.  By this standard, I’ve read studies that say that most animals have very short memories.

I don’t know about you, but if my memory (which is excellent) was judged on the basis of running mazes, I’d fail abysmally.  Jim, whose memory is rooted in visual associations, would probably score as a moron, since most of those mazes are without features.

ALAN: I’d be the same – I’m hopeless at mazes. Robin, on the other hand, loves them and is quite brilliant at navigating them. We’ve visited several mazes here in NZ and I’m always astonished at how expertly she finds her way through them. I just tag along, hopelessly lost…

Clearly I’m even more moronic than Jim.

JANE: My point is that none of us non-“maze runners’ are dumb, and neither are those animals who fail to live up to this challenge.

ALAN: Yes, that’s quite true. But, nevertheless, I’m sure that maze-running is measuring something significant about the way that the animals fit into their world. My cats Ginger and Milo never saw a maze in their lives, but I’m certain they’d have been really good at solving them. When we moved to a new house, they both used maze-running techniques to explore it. Ginger used a strict left-hand rule. She circled the house (in and out of every cupboard) hugging the wall as closely as she could and taking every left turn that she found until she ran out of them.

Milo had a different, but equally successful, technique. He started from his food bowl from which he took a revivifying snack. Then he set off in a straight line. Once he’d explored as far as he could in that direction (no turns allowed), he came back to the food bowl for another mouthful and then set off again in a new direction.

JANE: That’s really neat! Ginger was motivated by preserving some sense of personal safety, while Milo was motivated by assuring himself he would not lose his source of food!

I’ve seen many incidents that prove that housecats (who are usually judged by these tests as having short memories) have excellent memories.  One of these is what I call the story of Talli and Great Cthulhu.

I actually related the story a few months ago. But it’s so appropriate to what we’re discussing that I’d really like to tell it again.  I’ll give the short version, promise…

ALAN: That’s a good idea – I’d love to hear that story again.

JANE: Okay.  I’ll start with it next time.

Off to the Balloon Fiesta!

I guess there’s some truth to the old saying that people who live in an area are the ones least likely to attend the events that bring tourists to town.

When Pigs — and Other Things — Fly!

I thought about that this past Thursday as Jim and I sat in slowly creeping traffic on the way to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.  Although this event has been going on (under various names) for a long time, we’d never been to it together.  It had been about twenty years for me and even longer for Jim.

One reason we hadn’t gone before was that our house is right on the flight path taken by lots of balloons, so we see balloons up close almost every day.  We’ve come to recognize the various patterns used by the companies that give rides, and even notice when they add a new balloon to their fleet.  It hardly seemed worth getting up the early hour required and joining crowds to attend the Fiesta.

So what made us change our minds?  Well, as those of you know who have been reading these Wanderings (or Tangents or Fragments), Jim is a pretty good photographer.  When I came across a listing for a contest with the theme of autumn in New Mexico, I encouraged him to enter.  He did and, while he didn’t win any of the main prizes, his photo was among the “honorable mentions” which came with four tickets to the Balloon Fiesta.

It seemed like an omen.

We decided to drive over, rather than taking the Park and Ride, since the price of the Park and Ride included the tickets we already owned.  Besides, we were going on a Thursday, not a weekend.  The traffic shouldn’t be too bad, especially if we left early.

We left our house before 5:30 a.m., which seemed plenty of time given that the event didn’t start until 7:00 a.m., and we’d normally need only twenty minutes to get to the Balloon Park.  We were wrong.  Traffic slowed to a crawl the closer we came to the park.  As we came within a mile, people walking along the paths that paralleled the road were going faster than the vehicle traffic.  I realize this is usual in some parts of the country, but it isn’t in Albuquerque.

We finally arrived and were parked by 7:30.  Happily, the balloons had only just started launching, so we had plenty to watch.  We’d chosen our day because it fit Jim’s work schedule, but an added bonus was that this was one of the days when “special shapes” were featured.

Special shapes are balloons that aren’t crafted in the usual “balloon shape.” You know what I mean – the one where there’s a wide upper dome that tapers at the bottom, providing a place for the gondola to hang.  There’s a variation on this “usual” shape that’s more like an American football – tapered at top and bottom.  These are more commonly used in racing and agility events.

Special shapes vary considerably.  Some are the usual shape with additions.  A good example of this sort was an elephant we saw: the main balloon was pink, but extensions in the shape of ears and a trunk had been added on.  The effect was very convincing.  Another along this theme had side panels featuring three different clown faces.  On this one, the extensions were used to give dimensions to the clown’s headgear.  Oh!  And I can’t forget the one that looks like Carmen Miranda’s head, complete with her signature crown of various sorts of fruit.

Many special shapes don’t bear any resemblance to a classic balloon shape.  They’re more like the huge inflated figures that you sometimes see suspended over parade floats – the difference being that these are free flying sculptures.  We were treated to an amazing variety.  There were three flying pigs – one with wings, one without, and a third costumed as Spiderman.  There was “High Kitty,” a tribute to the famous “Hello Kitty.”  There was the shoe belonging to the Old Woman who lived therein, complete with a child out on the roof.  There was a wizard, with a black and white cat in his backpack.  Oh!  And the heads of Darth Vader and Yoda rose majestically side by side.

There was a full-body beagle, complete with floppy ears and wagging tail.  An orca, leaping through the sky with an enormous grin on its face.  An enormous alarm clock.  Three bumblebees, two of which – as they rose into the air – “held hands” so convincingly that Jim and I were sure the two envelopes were stitched together.  They weren’t – it was the skill of the pilots that enabled this to be carried out.

And these were only a few…  And for every special shape, there were many, many classic balloons in every color you can imagine and a few patterns – like the two that appeared to have been made from batik fabric – that I would never have anticipated.

Because special shapes aren’t as easy either to inflate or to pilot, it’s a lot less certain whether they’ll be able to go up.  Wind that a “normal” balloon can handle with a little care can ground a special shape.

We were very lucky.  Not only was the wind so light as to be unfelt on the ground, the air currents kept bringing the already launched balloons back over the field, so we were able to see them from various angles and at a wide variety of elevations.  By the time the last balloon launched and some of the earlier risers were coming down, Jim finally stopped taking pictures and I realized that I was both cold and hungry.

From one of the numerous concession stands, we bought pretty good breakfast burritos and ate them, watching the balloons all the while.  Eventually, we joined the crowds, stopping to watch some Indian dancers, to look at the offerings of various vendors, and to amble through the art exhibit.  Then we made our way back to our car and joined the crawling traffic.  This time it didn’t seem nearly as bad because we had balloons to watch as we made our way home.

FF: Mostly YA, Purely By Chance

News Flash!  Curiosities, my forthcoming short story collection, is now available for pre-order on i-Tunes.  Pre-order on other e-book sites will begin next week.  The print-on-demand version will be available soon, for those of you who prefer “real books.”  Look for an official Launch Day announcement before the end of October.

For those of you new to this post…  The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

Kel Claims the Shepherd’s Crown

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of descriptions or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  Audiobook.  Interesting mixture of elements.  I don’t think this one would be for everyone, because of the heavy reliance on 1980’s pop culture elements, but it suited me just fine.

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett.  I really enjoyed.  The end note is of writerly interest.

Naruto, issue 71.  Lots of fight scenes and super attacks can’t hide that interpersonal relationships are really the center of this story.

In Progress:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik.  Audiobook.  Starts like a typical “Beauty and the Beast” story, but that’s just the lauch pad.

Prince of Wolves by David Gross.  Time for another sword and sorcery romp.

And Also:

Back issues of magazines that piled up while we were on the road!

TT: Handling First Contact

JANE: Last week you said that you’d had another thought about aliens and how we react to them.  I’ve been waiting all week to find out what this is!

Toads Talking

ALAN: Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? Well, once you recognise that alien intelligences exist, a whole new set of problems arise. Probably the most important is the question of how you do you communicate with them? In other words, how do you handle the “first contact” problem?

JANE: Oh!  I love first contact stories.  I’ve even written a few…  But you first!

ALAN: It’s easy to see an analogy with the classical age of exploration here on Earth. The European explorers came across many strange societies and faced this problem in real life many times. A brilliant novel that explores this is James Clavell’s Shogun which sees Japanese culture from a European point of view. The two societies are so utterly different from each other that the novel can easily be read as a dramatisation of the science fictional first contact. Several reviewers and critics have remarked on the parallel – I’m by no means alone in suggesting it.

JANE: Shogun is great.  “Maybe a duck…”  Talk about culture clashes!

When I set out to write the first Firekeeper novel, Through Wolf’s Eyes, I realized that in many ways that the Mowgli stories in The Jungle Books and Tarzan are both “first contact” stories because, although human by birth and biology, both Mowgli and Tarzan begin their association with humanity from an alien mindset.

Mowgli thinks of himself as a wolf first and a “citizen” of the larger community called “The Jungle” second.  He clearly adheres to the “social contract” that is itemized in the Laws of the Jungle.

Tarzan never ceases to think of himself as a hairless white ape, even after he has reclaimed his birthright as Lord Greystoke.  He never seems happier than when he can return to his roots.  (Or, maybe we should say “branches”?)

Anyhow, my awareness of this shaped Through Wolf’s Eyes and the sequels, because I didn’t want to do another “first contact,” story – or rather “only” a first contact story.

ALAN: I never thought of those as “first contact” stories before, but now that you’ve pointed it out, I think you’re right – that’s exactly what they are. But, in pure science fiction terms, I think that Murray Leinster’s delightful novellette “First Contact” is probably the archetype. It comes up with a really ingenious answer to the problem.

JANE: If I read that, it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten it.  Can you tell more or would that completely ruin the story?

ALAN: I’ll try.

Two spaceships meet in the void. Communication is established in a rather primitive manner through a kind of universal translator. The problem then becomes one of finding a way to ensure that neither ship can track the other back to their home planet. Neither wants to give any military (or technological) advantage to the other and if one side does get hold of information like that, it would clearly have the upper hand

The problem is solved on two levels.  Formal negotiations come up with an ingenious plan but, perhaps more importantly, behind the scenes it becomes clear that the two groups are likely to work well together in the future. They have a lot in common. The crew members of each ship have been talking informally, and they quickly build a close rapport by telling each other dirty jokes…

JANE: (scribbling)  Okay.  I need to look this one up.  It sounds vaguely familiar but…

My second published novel, Marks of Our Brothers, is an alien first contact story.  However, unlike many such stories where a meeting in space or suchlike makes very clear that the aliens in question must be “people” not “animals,” (after all, they have spaceships or space stations or something), the problem in Marks of Our Brothers is somewhat different.

Here the question is whether or not the aliens in question are “people” at all.  They don’t have hands.  They are not obvious tool users, even on the primitive level of, for example, David Weber’s treecats.  In fact, they look rather like Labrador retrievers.

The book grew out of my fascination with how many tests sociologists and suchlike use to measure “intelligence” are based on human norms.

ALAN: Of course, the stories we’ve both mentioned assume that the humans and the aliens do actually have a communication channel, either face to face or through some sort of communication device. The problem becomes much harder to solve if the alien race is long dead.

JANE: Yeah, “long dead” would make it difficult to have any sort of contact with a race.

ALAN: That’s true in a very literal sense. (Sorry to ruin your joke by taking it seriously.) But it does raise the question of just how could archeologists of the future come to grips with the language and culture of a society that has no living members with whom to talk? There are lots of societies here on Earth that we know very little about, and whose written records we cannot read. How much harder will that be for truly alien societies with which we have nothing in common?

JANE: Since I’m married to an archeologist, I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it is to learn about a past culture – even if that culture has living descendants.  The complexities would grow exponentially with a completely alien culture.

ALAN: H. Beam Piper came up with a beautiful solution to the problem in his short story “Omnilingual.” He assumes that technological societies have more in common with each other than non-technological societies do because scientific truths are universal. The story itself uses the periodic table of the elements as a Rosetta stone to unlock the secrets that an alien society had left behind.

JANE: Okay.  I’m sure I read that one, but it’s been a while…  I need to find a copy and re-read it.  Any other good first contact stories to suggest?

ALAN: I’m very fond of a series of short stories about a team of unorthodox engineers by the British writer Colin Kapp. In each story, the team is presented with an alien technology from a long dead race. They have to deduce what the technology is for, often to a tight deadline. After several semi-catastrophic red-herrings lead them up several garden paths, they eventually find out what the technology is really supposed to do, just in time to prevent a disaster.

The stories are somewhat formulaic, but their humour, and the ingenuity of the alien technologies transcend the formula. The stories have a small cult following in the UK. They were published under the title Unorthodox Engineers by Dobson Books and the stories originally appeared in Dobson’s New Writings in SF series. Probably the best of the stories is “The Railways Up on Cannis”…

JANE: I haven’t read those.  I’ll see if I can find a copy.  So many books, so little time…

An alien first contact short story I’m fond of is Larry Niven’s “The Warriors.”  It’s the tale of the first encounter between humans and the Kzinti.  You get a look from both sides and the each makes assumptions based on their own cultural values that are fascinating.

ALAN: I’ve not read that one. I’ll add it to my list. Hmmm… Infinity plus one… I may have a problem here…

JANE: Another place to sample a bunch of first contact stories is the anthology First Contact edited by Larry Segriff and Martin H. Greenberg.  I contributed a short story called “Small Heroes,” which is reprinted in my new collection Curiosities.

ALAN: I’ve not read that one either. Oh well – at least I’ll get to read your story when I buy my copy of Curiosities.

JANE: I hope you enjoy it when you do…

Gardener With Plants… And With Words

News Flash! Interested in an interview with me about the “Artemis” books and a few other things?  Here’s one with New Books in Science Fiction that just went “live” this week.  Look at the bottom of the text introduction for an audio link.

And now we shall proceed with our regularly scheduled Wander…

Back in April, I began a Wednesday Wandering with the following

Early Autumn Produce, Harvest 2015

words:

“On Saturday, Jim and I planted twenty-one tomato seeds.  Our goal is to have twelve plants bearing tomatoes by the end of the summer.  We’ll be happy with six, especially if five of them are romas, because romas are good both for eating fresh and for cooking.”  (WW 4-15-15)

I thought I’d let you know how our experiment worked out and, while I was at it, touch on my feelings about a jargon term that’s getting increased exposure these days.

But first, the tomatoes!  Jim and I didn’t expect all twenty-one seeds we planted to germinate but, to our surprise, they did.  We ended up with fourteen “Viva Italia” roma seedlings, and seven “Sweet Million” cherry tomato seedlings.

We’d planted the seeds in a covered “seed starter,” so we figured we’d lose some plants when we transferred them to the small yogurt containers we use as our first series of “pots.”  Often the shock of going from the enclosed environment – even though we’d been slowly increasing the amount of outside air the plants received – has lost us plants in the past.

But, to our astonishment, all twenty-one plants lived through not only this first transfer, but also the second to larger containers.  We nursed the plants along indoors until May 17th, when we planted fifteen in our garden beds, keeping the others in reserve.

This time we did lose a few plants.  Two were broken off by the wind.  We replaced these with the same variety.  A third was killed by a virus, probably curly top.  We didn’t replace this one because, by the time we lost it, the two plants on either side were growing large enough that a seedling wouldn’t have had a chance.

Meanwhile, the four remaining plants were beginning to get “pot bound.”  Additionally, they were stressed by the rising summer temperatures heating the soil in their containers.  We searched around and found space to place these remaining plants behind some Oriental lilies that were pretty much done with their summer blossoming.

So, out of twenty-one seeds planted, we ended up with eighteen plants.  The four that went into the ground late are just beginning to produce ripe fruit.  We don’t usually get a killing frost until late October or early November, so – depending on nighttime temperatures – we may be picking tomatoes for several more weeks.

(And, as the picture illustrating this week’s Wandering shows, we have lots of eggplant and peppers, too!)

So, what does any of this have to do with writing?  Well, here in New Mexico – and probably elsewhere given the source – I keep hearing  new terms for the two very general categories into which most writers fall.  These terms are “gardener” and “architect,” and they are generally credited to George R.R. Martin.

A “gardener” is what I learned to call an “intuitive plotter” and have also heard called a “pantser.”  “Pantser” is short for “seat of the pants” and is usually paired with “planner.”   In case you wonder, “intuitive plotter” is usually paired with “outliner.”

I will say, I’ve never personally heard George use these terms, so I don’t know what he bases them on, but I would like to say a bit about how the term “gardener” is easily misinterpreted.

From my experience, the biggest difference between an intuitive plotter and an outliner is that the intuitive plotters don’t know precisely how the story will progress while the outliners believe that they do.

Since another term for “gardener” or “intuitive plotter” is “pantser,” I looked up definitions of “seat of the pants” and found this one in several places: “Based on or using intuition and experience rather than a plan or method, improvised; Performed without using instruments.”

A key word here is experience.  Outliners frequently seem to think that intuitive plotters rely on luck and/or Ouija boards to come up with their stories.  This is far from the case.  Intuitive plotters do a considerable amount of groundwork for their writing.  Sometimes, they do this preparation far in advance of an actual project – or even before the project exists.   In this way, we are very similar to actual gardeners, since preparing the soil is a big part of making sure the garden will be thrive.

I was hanging out with George R.R. Martin when he was working on Game of Thrones and I saw how much work he put into creating the soil that would be able to support the enormous sequoia he was writing.  I inherited much of Roger Zelazny’s research library.  He was another “intuitive plotter,” but that didn’t mean he didn’t read tons of books about the subject that had current caught his fancy, whether that was computer hackers or Navajo culture or kites.

Gardening – whether we’re talking about writing or talking about putting actual plants in the ground – is not a lightweight excuse to not do the “hard work.”  Every year, Jim and I discuss the microclimates in our yard and decide what needs to be shifted where.  This year we discovered that the catalpa trees now cast too much shade for squash to thrive at the southern edge of one bed, where they’ve always done great before.  Next year we’re going to switch them to the western end of a different bed, where the beans never do very well.

Writing intuitively requires the same awareness of the story, of the shifting environments created by new elements.  You learn to trust that something is important, even when you can’t see where it fits in right away.  Writing intuitively requires an awareness of the pulses and tides of the story.  It involves writing little notes to yourself about the things you suspect may become important.

Writing intuitively involves listening to the Muse.  Your subconscious.  Your inner demon.  It involves coming in for a landing without using instruments.  But whatever it is, it isn’t easy.  It isn’t slapdash.  And neither is gardening… whether you’re growing plants or writing stories.

FF: Reading Is Really Important

Being home for a bit over a week hasn’t meant a lot more time to read, because catching up after travel takes a lot of time.  Even so, I made time because reading is really important to me.  Without it, I’m less of a writer.

Ogapoge Meditates on Raising Steam

The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of descriptions or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett.  The formerly “medieval” into “Renaissance” Discworld enters the time of steam aka, the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.

Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm.  Before she became famous as Robin Hobb, Megan Lindholm had a very solid critical reputation, much of which was based on this urban fantasy (old flavor) novel.  I’d wanted to read it forever, but never found a copy.  Jim found me one for my birthday.  I agree with the praise.

In Progress:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  Audiobook.  Interesting mixture of elements.  I don’t think this one would be for everyone, because of the heavy reliance on 1980’s pop culture elements, but it suits me just fine.

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett.  Just started.

And Also:

Continuing to read short essays about old SF movies.  I found a listing for Stalker, 1979, German, that sounds like a template for the recent award-winning Annihilation and sequels.  Inspiration or coincidence?