Francis Mont's Blog, page 5
October 11, 2019
"The Dancers at the End of Time"
"The Dancers at the End of Time" science fiction trilogy by Michael Moorcock depicts a decaying far, far future society, a time when anything and everything is possible, where words like 'conscience' and 'morality' are meaningless and all that's left is seeking pleasure. I often think of that title when I hear the news these days. The memory of this novel is often coupled, in my mind, with the memory of a climate-change commercial that I saw years ago: It's in a city with high-rises and traffic signs and people playing basketball and badminton - waist deep in flood water.
Listening to the news these days brings these memories back as I watch our politicians making their election promises of 'economic growth' and paying lip service to 'fight' against climate change, setting ambitious targets for 2050 - like anyone ever believed in long term planning. In the meantime, we are all dancing, not realizing that we are doing it at the End of Time.
Listening to the news these days brings these memories back as I watch our politicians making their election promises of 'economic growth' and paying lip service to 'fight' against climate change, setting ambitious targets for 2050 - like anyone ever believed in long term planning. In the meantime, we are all dancing, not realizing that we are doing it at the End of Time.
October 1, 2019
A human obsession destroying the world.
Have you read “The Spire” by William Golding? Or “Small is Beautiful” by E.F. Schumacher? They are both on the subject that occupies my mind these days: this human obsession with size and growth. If big is good, bigger is better and I want the biggest of them all! If someone builds the tallest skyscraper, I want to build one that’s at least a foot taller. That sort of thing. Golding’s book is beautifully written but mostly symbolic, most readers won’t understand that he is talking about systemic madness, not just one priest’s obsession that destroys lives around him in the process. In our jaded, cynical world subtle doesn’t work anymore. It has to be a fist between the eyes for people to take notice.
This human obsession with size, speed, power, complexity is destroying the world. And it is completely pointless because nobody asks if any of it would contribute to human happiness. It’s like mountain climbing as explained by George Mallory: “because it is there”. If it can be done, someone will want to do it and (s)he will have lots of supporters, cheering on the sideline.
Not only it (whatever it is) doesn’t make anyone happier, apart from a short lived thrill, soon forgotten, but it destroys the planet and most living things on it in its march to an unattainable goal: to build the biggest, fastest, most powerful whatever. Every skyscraper, however tall, is only half the size of its double. And this obsession with size translates into the well known obsession with economic growth. We have already outgrown the planet but we can’t stop. It’s the way some aboriginal tribes catch monkeys in the Amazon jungle. They suspend a leather pouch with irresistible food inside from a branch. The opening is barely large enough for the monkey to squeeze its hand in, but, once it grabbed the food in its fist, it can’t pull it out. The monkey gets caught because it can’t let go of the bait. Basic human greed won’t allow it to open its fist and pull the hand out empty.
Human happiness does not depend on size of artifacts. I wrote a novel about it, called “House Arrest”. The last paragraph in the novel summarizes my belief on this subject:
“I’m trying to recapture the experience of the past months, attempting to illustrate my deeply held belief about the nature of human happiness. Science and technology gave us marvels in construction and engineering, comfort and entertainment unparalleled in human history, but it did not make most of us happy in our daily lives. Living on this farm made me realize that happiness doesn’t require comfort and distraction. I always suspected this. What it needs is a community of cooperating, productive people who depended on each other and worked toward a common goal. If you have that, happiness is assured, whatever discomfort you may have to put up with. If it’s lacking, as the case was for most people in advanced industrial societies, then no amount of comfort and entertainment can satisfy the fundamental need.”
This human obsession with size, speed, power, complexity is destroying the world. And it is completely pointless because nobody asks if any of it would contribute to human happiness. It’s like mountain climbing as explained by George Mallory: “because it is there”. If it can be done, someone will want to do it and (s)he will have lots of supporters, cheering on the sideline.
Not only it (whatever it is) doesn’t make anyone happier, apart from a short lived thrill, soon forgotten, but it destroys the planet and most living things on it in its march to an unattainable goal: to build the biggest, fastest, most powerful whatever. Every skyscraper, however tall, is only half the size of its double. And this obsession with size translates into the well known obsession with economic growth. We have already outgrown the planet but we can’t stop. It’s the way some aboriginal tribes catch monkeys in the Amazon jungle. They suspend a leather pouch with irresistible food inside from a branch. The opening is barely large enough for the monkey to squeeze its hand in, but, once it grabbed the food in its fist, it can’t pull it out. The monkey gets caught because it can’t let go of the bait. Basic human greed won’t allow it to open its fist and pull the hand out empty.
Human happiness does not depend on size of artifacts. I wrote a novel about it, called “House Arrest”. The last paragraph in the novel summarizes my belief on this subject:
“I’m trying to recapture the experience of the past months, attempting to illustrate my deeply held belief about the nature of human happiness. Science and technology gave us marvels in construction and engineering, comfort and entertainment unparalleled in human history, but it did not make most of us happy in our daily lives. Living on this farm made me realize that happiness doesn’t require comfort and distraction. I always suspected this. What it needs is a community of cooperating, productive people who depended on each other and worked toward a common goal. If you have that, happiness is assured, whatever discomfort you may have to put up with. If it’s lacking, as the case was for most people in advanced industrial societies, then no amount of comfort and entertainment can satisfy the fundamental need.”
September 17, 2019
Science Fiction at its best
If we consider only serious literature, science fiction, at its best, aims to make the readers think about important humanistic values. Often it achieves this by contrasting two civilizations: a corrupt, dying, self-destructive one (not unlike our own) with a vibrant, healthy well balanced utopia. Without preaching to the reader, it shows, by example, how easy and simple life could be if we used our brains more often, instead of our confused and often violent emotions. The great masters of the genre like Ursula Le Guin, Ray Bradbury or Kurt Vonnegut belong to this group of intellectual writers who want to teach rather than just to entertain.
Vera Mont’s “The Ozimord Project” falls in this category by portraying a dying civilization and contrasting it with a healthy, intelligently innocent culture that values individual happiness above all else. The Ozimordians achieve this by maximizing individual freedom in all areas of life: intellectual, emotional, sexual, and show a shiny example of what a cooperative society can achieve without destroying their planet in the process. It’s the simplicity of their solution that I find most impressive: the casual, uncomplicated way they relate to each other and to their world. No ideologies, no religions, no destructive competition sullies the ultimate aim: live and let live without destructive domination games. The reader can’t help feeling nostalgic about this utopia, especially by recognizing his or her own world in the ‘other’ - mirror image of our own culture.
The writing is exceptionally literate, the language used is rich and nuanced and the underlining subtle humour, especially focused by the unexpected twist at the end, should delight all connoisseurs of serious literature.
See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Vera Mont’s “The Ozimord Project” falls in this category by portraying a dying civilization and contrasting it with a healthy, intelligently innocent culture that values individual happiness above all else. The Ozimordians achieve this by maximizing individual freedom in all areas of life: intellectual, emotional, sexual, and show a shiny example of what a cooperative society can achieve without destroying their planet in the process. It’s the simplicity of their solution that I find most impressive: the casual, uncomplicated way they relate to each other and to their world. No ideologies, no religions, no destructive competition sullies the ultimate aim: live and let live without destructive domination games. The reader can’t help feeling nostalgic about this utopia, especially by recognizing his or her own world in the ‘other’ - mirror image of our own culture.
The writing is exceptionally literate, the language used is rich and nuanced and the underlining subtle humour, especially focused by the unexpected twist at the end, should delight all connoisseurs of serious literature.
See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
September 1, 2019
How many mass shootings will it take?
This is a serious question. How many mass shootings will it take to break out of the long established cycle: mass shooting - hand wringing - platitudes - finger pointing - demonstrations - flowers, balloons, teddy bears on the side walk -... - waiting for the next one.
Would one a day do it? We are almost there already. How about one each hour on the average?
I predict that at one point people will stay home as much as possible, locking their doors, ordering in everything they need and refusing to go out unless absolutely necessary. I bet there are millions already doing that. Americans going to the mattresses.
Still, no action, not even keeping submachine-like guns out of the hands of mentally unbalanced people.
Would a sane alien, looking down at us from space, conclude that our species is not viable, maybe ripe for demolition as Douglas Adams imagined it?
Would one a day do it? We are almost there already. How about one each hour on the average?
I predict that at one point people will stay home as much as possible, locking their doors, ordering in everything they need and refusing to go out unless absolutely necessary. I bet there are millions already doing that. Americans going to the mattresses.
Still, no action, not even keeping submachine-like guns out of the hands of mentally unbalanced people.
Would a sane alien, looking down at us from space, conclude that our species is not viable, maybe ripe for demolition as Douglas Adams imagined it?
August 15, 2019
Election coming – vote for or vote against?
We’ll have a federal election in Canada in two months time and the news are abuzz with speculations regarding people’s intentions on for whom, how and why to vote. I listened to a call-in show on the radio today and most people who called expressed one of two opinions:
1. I don’t trust the current government but I’ll vote for them because the other party that has a chance is even worse and I don’t want them to run the country.
2. I’d like to vote for the Green Party because I think climate change is the most serious issue, but they don’t have a chance to win, so I might as well vote for the one of the two real contenders that I hate less.
I was in a somewhat similar quandary until, in a flash of inspiration while waiting for my wife in a parking lot, I realized that my own single individual vote won’t make any difference in the outcome, so I might as well vote for the party that represents my real interests and opinions (The Green Party, of course).
Of course the usual argument is: “if more people thought like that, then the bastards might win, we all have to pull together to defeat them.
However, the counter argument is that: my single, individual act of voting won’t make anyone else think like that, so it still won’t make any difference, so I might as well vote the way I feel.
Then the question I expect is: “then why do I bother to vote at all?”
I wrote a whole blog entry a while ago about it and the essence of that blog was: it’s a futile gesture that makes me feel good for the only reason that the bastards busy destroying my world wouldn’t want me to. It’s a tiny act of defiance that makes me feel good and, as such, it’s precious to me.
And, if more people thought like me, then the bastards might lose after all.
So, my advice: vote your conscience.
1. I don’t trust the current government but I’ll vote for them because the other party that has a chance is even worse and I don’t want them to run the country.
2. I’d like to vote for the Green Party because I think climate change is the most serious issue, but they don’t have a chance to win, so I might as well vote for the one of the two real contenders that I hate less.
I was in a somewhat similar quandary until, in a flash of inspiration while waiting for my wife in a parking lot, I realized that my own single individual vote won’t make any difference in the outcome, so I might as well vote for the party that represents my real interests and opinions (The Green Party, of course).
Of course the usual argument is: “if more people thought like that, then the bastards might win, we all have to pull together to defeat them.
However, the counter argument is that: my single, individual act of voting won’t make anyone else think like that, so it still won’t make any difference, so I might as well vote the way I feel.
Then the question I expect is: “then why do I bother to vote at all?”
I wrote a whole blog entry a while ago about it and the essence of that blog was: it’s a futile gesture that makes me feel good for the only reason that the bastards busy destroying my world wouldn’t want me to. It’s a tiny act of defiance that makes me feel good and, as such, it’s precious to me.
And, if more people thought like me, then the bastards might lose after all.
So, my advice: vote your conscience.
July 28, 2019
The danger you face writing Utopias
When you spend a long time, in my case most of my adult life, reading, thinking, writing about Utopias you notice a side effect that can be really depressing: you start hating your own world.
The problem is with knowing how blindingly simple and obvious it all would be. Our insanity is not forced on us by natural laws of Physics, or by hostile aliens, we are doing it to ourselves. It's like that old joke when the man goes to the doctor and says: "Doctor, it hurts when I raise my arm." The doctor's advice: "stop raising your arm."
The constructive way of thinking about your species is: how can our lives be made better, how could it be improved, starting from where we are now.
However, when you think you know how things should be (everybody does) in an ideal world, and the contrast between that and the here and now is so great that you don't see getting even remotely close to it in your lifetime, you may give up even thinking about tiny changes that you could recommend to your readers.
I tried it once, with an essay: "Proposal for a new social contract", posted it on several forums and most of the answers had to do with my mental state. See at: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
So I gave up on that and started writing social commentary stories with happy endings. As Trevor said in my "House Arrest" - "If I was squeezed out of my old world, I might as well create a world all my own, that no one can yank out from under me."
The problem is with knowing how blindingly simple and obvious it all would be. Our insanity is not forced on us by natural laws of Physics, or by hostile aliens, we are doing it to ourselves. It's like that old joke when the man goes to the doctor and says: "Doctor, it hurts when I raise my arm." The doctor's advice: "stop raising your arm."
The constructive way of thinking about your species is: how can our lives be made better, how could it be improved, starting from where we are now.
However, when you think you know how things should be (everybody does) in an ideal world, and the contrast between that and the here and now is so great that you don't see getting even remotely close to it in your lifetime, you may give up even thinking about tiny changes that you could recommend to your readers.
I tried it once, with an essay: "Proposal for a new social contract", posted it on several forums and most of the answers had to do with my mental state. See at: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
So I gave up on that and started writing social commentary stories with happy endings. As Trevor said in my "House Arrest" - "If I was squeezed out of my old world, I might as well create a world all my own, that no one can yank out from under me."
July 13, 2019
"Saved in Time" or how to cure the 'Human Condition'
My second novel, "Saved in Time", just got (self)published and my brain is a dishrag. After a grueling 12-hour marathon editing, finally it's done and I don't have to look at the damn thing ever again. It's another dangerous experiment, trying to figure out what might happen that could shock our species out of our millennia-long insanity, leading us toward self destruction. However, while the first novel I wrote ("House Arrest") projected our current reality into the near future in a way that could very easily happen, this time I was a lot more pessimistic: not a chance in hell, unless some sane aliens come to our rescue. I called it "a dangerous experiment" because I fully expect a Bell curve reaction from readers, ranging from approval to anger, depending on his or her political and ideological stand on issues I deal with. In either case, I had no choice in writing it, the ideas had been tormenting my mind for decades and finally they took over my brain and made me write it. I hope there will be a few who can appreciate at least the irony of this hybrid creation that my first reviewer called science fiction/political thriller. My fervent hope is that at least some of my readers will be thrilled.
June 12, 2019
Suggestion to book reviewers
I have posted this blog entry before but decided to bring it to the top because it is so relevant for GR reviewers. This is a checklist to consider when trying to review a piece of literature from the perspective of the intended audience, even if you personally don't like it.
"Now that I have ten of my reviews for my new novel in, I’d like to make a suggestion for future reviewers. When reviewing a literary piece, one should comment at least on some, if not all, of the following aspects of the reviewed piece (both positive and negative).
Opening comments
Basic concept,
Plot
Pacing
Descriptions (language, style)
Point of view
Characters/relationships
Dialog
Grammar and spelling
Closing comments
It would be helpful to both the writer and to potential readers who want to decide, based on the review, if they want to invest the time to take a look at the piece. This list comes from the Scribophile website as a guideline for reviewers. Sadly, so few of the reviewers I have encountered on Goodreads think they ought to address all (or any) of these important aspects of literature, although, I am sure most of them would like to receive a thorough commentary of their own work. "
"Now that I have ten of my reviews for my new novel in, I’d like to make a suggestion for future reviewers. When reviewing a literary piece, one should comment at least on some, if not all, of the following aspects of the reviewed piece (both positive and negative).
Opening comments
Basic concept,
Plot
Pacing
Descriptions (language, style)
Point of view
Characters/relationships
Dialog
Grammar and spelling
Closing comments
It would be helpful to both the writer and to potential readers who want to decide, based on the review, if they want to invest the time to take a look at the piece. This list comes from the Scribophile website as a guideline for reviewers. Sadly, so few of the reviewers I have encountered on Goodreads think they ought to address all (or any) of these important aspects of literature, although, I am sure most of them would like to receive a thorough commentary of their own work. "
May 24, 2019
The Great International Garbage War (GIGW)
The newest horror-headline says: "Philippines rejects Canada's late-June timeline for garbage repatriation"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/phil...
We are drowning the cities, the lakes, the rivers, the oceans, in garbage, shipping it around the globe, fueling climate change and fighting about whose garbage it is.
The only unthinkable solution is: STOP MAKING IT!!!
The ultimate proof for our species's insanity
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/phil...
We are drowning the cities, the lakes, the rivers, the oceans, in garbage, shipping it around the globe, fueling climate change and fighting about whose garbage it is.
The only unthinkable solution is: STOP MAKING IT!!!
The ultimate proof for our species's insanity
April 27, 2019
The risk you take in writing politically explicit stories
Finally I received a 2-star review for our short story collection. It must have touched a nerve of the reviewer because he said: “I found many of the stories to carry a preachy, heavy-handed tone which, after a while felt like I was being lectured…”
That’s not surprising because the collection contained a novella (Time Scope) which, as another reviewer called: “a mildly disguised analogy to what some see as present day politics. This may be a turnoff to readers with a strong political bias.”
It wasn’t disguised at all. The novella was inspired by the 2016 US Presidential race and was unapologetically political, as another reviewer commented: “with enough intelligent social commentary to make this a work clearly superior to the average science-fiction collection.”
When you write about issues that people feel passionate about, either for or against, sooner or later you bump into a critic from the other ‘camp’ who will hate it. I am surprised that it didn’t happen sooner.
Luckily, most of the other reviews were very positive which gives me hope for the viability of the human species.
That’s not surprising because the collection contained a novella (Time Scope) which, as another reviewer called: “a mildly disguised analogy to what some see as present day politics. This may be a turnoff to readers with a strong political bias.”
It wasn’t disguised at all. The novella was inspired by the 2016 US Presidential race and was unapologetically political, as another reviewer commented: “with enough intelligent social commentary to make this a work clearly superior to the average science-fiction collection.”
When you write about issues that people feel passionate about, either for or against, sooner or later you bump into a critic from the other ‘camp’ who will hate it. I am surprised that it didn’t happen sooner.
Luckily, most of the other reviews were very positive which gives me hope for the viability of the human species.
