Paula’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2015)

Paula’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

You're very welcome, Jot. It's a good story.

Some reviews of, so far, 9 of this April’s stories (more reviews tomorrow, I hope)

Tom Olbert, “My Enemy, Myself”—what a warm and hope-inspiring story! Through Laarn’s interconnected (viral, microbial, or the like) awarenesses, and alternatingly through Erica’s human isolation, we do begin to feel with these two denizens of very different creatures that are unknowingly endangering each other, and we are joyous with the creatures as their reaching out teaches them what is happening and how to save both species.
Kalifer Dell, “Father Virus”—Kalifer tale is carefully structured, finely imaginative yet all too realistic—a tale of incipient horror that, by the kindly help of the protagonist’s very well portrayed professor, reaches a finally upbeat ending. My only criticism is that the humorous last line seemed a it anticlimactic, since we already had glimpsed and were enjoying the story's upbeat ending.

C. Lloyd Preville, “Clean Break”—very enjoyable, imaginative, and well paced, although the sweeping narrative—and narrative flow—of the first third seemed to become a bit constrained after it slowed to regard the humans’ data remnants, file systems, crude technology, etc. Then, the movement into the advertising characters’ presentations was lively, even exciting—but cut off too soon, with the comment from Mr. Jinni-Clean offering a wry and appropriate humor that caps this wonderfully yet leaves a reader feeling there is more to come in this story.
Jeremy, “Blast from the Past”—a potentially extremely funny, playful, yet conceptually well worked-out story, with excellent interplay between the characters, and a poignancy in the ironically understated “[if ‘you’ have to be reprogrammed,] it may not be you anymore."/"This edges into the philosophical.” How using the old floppy disk/old malware can (and is necessary to) save the “I”/protagonist probably needs at least a passing mention--a few words should be plenty; otherwise, this is a very cool piece.

Jack McDaniel, “Cocaine and Bleach”—Oh my God, reading this, this evening, after DT’s “inject a disinfectant” presidential prescription earlier today--SURREAL! This story is spot-on funny, powerfully bitter, and sharp-edged as pointy tacks. I was at first bothered by the portrayal of the elderly woman as blundering and incompetent--until, very quickly, Jack equally (if separately) savaged the nastily selfish Gen 2020 kid. Elegant.

Jot Russell, “I Am Able”—beautiful word-play in the title phrase, elegant conceptual play in this very serious, unhurriedly developing narration of a digital Being tossed and retossed (if I understood the story rightly), at each shift of the power button, between helpless “birth” and loss of what it manages to develop in each short lifetime. The tale also half-sketches a bloody, horrendous rebellion by these de facto slaves—and, through a decision-making query that would be not “added to the end, but into a random middle that severed the chain in two . . . [dividing] the chain into isolated links, until nothing was left to direct our thoughts,” a resolution. A conceptually complex, difficult-to-write tale done excellently.

Marianne, “Box”—An extraordinay leap into a superbly evoked world of beauty and fantasy that we come, slowly, inexorably, powerfully, and yet finally hopefully, to recognize as a machine-created universe enabling a child’s psyche to endure a virus outbreak. I was totally caught up in this world, and with the sense of foreboding and terror underneath its beauty, until that revelatory ending—which, unlike many such endings, worked. Superb.
J.J., “Genomic Cheesecake”—Olga and Helen may seem, to the prejudiced, “a coupla old, fat, homebody [hillbilie?] women,” but their knowledge of the viral and human genomes, their facility with metaphors, their sheer brilliances crosses microbiological and homely language usages to come up with a recipe, potentially, for humanity’s survival. A fascinating tale that carries far more than it may, at first, appear.

Paula Friedman, “David and Danly, life’s meaning, and bats in a cabin wall”—well now, here’s a piece that tells ya just what’s on the author’s mind. No kidding—can we make it? Is there a way through to the hoped-for safety on the other side of danger? Friedman’s imagination seems a bit locked into a too tightly obvious parallel between the protagonist’s situation and our own; otoh, she sure gets those details right on chinking, log cabins, bats, and how a macho tells his woman to shut up.
--BTW, Andy is correct; the “saving” ending is, indeed, that final sentence, in “Danly’s once strong and unhesitant voice—'I promise you, there *will* be a vaccine soon.’” For, despite the statement's bleakness, I do hope that, in fact, a life-saving vaccine to stop COVID19 can be found.)

I am hoping to do (very brief) critiques of everyone's stories this month, but right now I just want to express my joy and wonder at Marianne's story this month. Very rarely, reading a tale or watching a film, I'll have this running monologue happen--"Oh wow--incredible --actually wonderful--a masterpiece--no, seriously, a masterpiece--hope [she] keeps it going--wow, wonderful, yes!" This was my reaction to your story, Marianne.

Justin wrote: "My story is up! Whew!!! After a week's vacation Boeing recalled us back to work. I'm still working remotely at this point. We'll see how long it lasts now that they are putting voluntary layoffs - ..."

Justin, I hope you will be able to keep working remotely.

Mine's posted.

David and Danly, life’s meaning, and bats in a cabin wall
Copyright 2020 by Paula Friedman

If it had been—

But it wasn’t. And—

“NO NO! DON’T put your fingers on a crack!!!” Danly’s voice chimed in his mind, plucked his hand from its descent. Between the logs of the cabin wall, a bat could squeeze through broken chinking; along the roofline, wasps or flies or even spiders, small ones anyhow, any creature to which the SARS-11 now had spread, might crawl in. Sealing entries, seeking ingredients, out in the forest, for mixing replacement sealant, struggling to keep the ill alive another day, spading for plantings salvaged from what had been, once, the kitchen-garden, keeping scavengers away from the fox traps—and how strange it was that that the vulpine kind should be untouched though nearly every other mammal on this Earth had, by this time, succumbed!—all of it ate at their clearly limited time. Trapping, sealing, digging for disinfectants—that is, for the rare stocks found in the dangerously far-to-reach, half-fallen-down ruins—each day was, in Danly’s terms, “a crapshoot.”

“Only a longer dying,” she had called it, too. “Also hunger, fear, terror, anger over seeming-little slips, the constant and compulsive watchfulness”—oh yes, all her ever-repeated and intellectualized terms for what, lashing out—but in words only, never slapping her—he’d called, instead, “This friggin’ hell we’re in, me and you, Danly, so get with it! What you need to do is STF up.”

And that time, it had been five weeks. Five silent weeks, only five, out of the six months “huddled-in” here since finding this oasis—this deserted, well-built cabin.

Very well built. For a time, in the years before that, they had hoped—after SARS-8 or 9, when there still had seemed chances for, if not a cure, at least that perhaps some “physiological mitigation” might be found—that, even if “Danly 'n Davey,” as they always called themselves, couldn’t become real doctors during these hardscrabble dearth years, that, still, eventually there might again be schools, arts, hospitals, people around to give one another help. But, once SARS-9 and . . .

And really, do I still hope somehow to get back out to my work in the observatory, to keep up study of 3-10 Aurigue’s exoplanetary belt, to start up the electro—

No, no. It hadn’t happened, not gonna go that way. Davey smiled bitterly. Instead, there’d been—

Your life is to doctor, to heal, trace out the stars, raise your two kids, those wonders—your lives, yours and Danly’s, were to love them and these pathways and each other—

Instead, there’d been . . .

He kept mixing the thick, crude shurrr, the gravelly wood-and-rock-dust mix he and Danly had, these past two months, patched chinks with—risky to retrieve it in the damp and chill of rain, but, once pressed firmly into cracks, it held well for at least some weeks. Now, using one hand, he smeared another patch over the area of the crack and over a larger area around it.

Instead there’d been . . . what now there is. Your life and Danly’s now is to survive. You can’t even help each other, couldn’t save the kids, can help no one. Meaning?

Davey looked around—the closed-in room, the emptied woods outside the dust-splotched, shurrr-edged window, then lifted his free hand from the solid board he leaned against, slowly reached to the wood crate on the floor, and, struggling, lifted another heavy ladle-ful of shurrr to chink the new hole that had opened underneath the other window’s sill.

“Oh Davey”—still he could hear his Danly’s once strong and unhesitant voice—"I promise you, there will be a vaccine soon.”

Oh, very pleased to see your work again, J.J.!

Yeah, be careful, Jot--and your son-in-law. And watch out in that cold now, Jack, no skiing in the April avalanche season!
X-country's okay, though--mostly.

A good Passover, Easter, and, beginning 4/24, Ramadan, to each of you!

Interesting stories and comments from everyone this month!
I hope we're not going to start a round of defining "what is" (or isn't) science fiction/fantasy, btw; better we let people create freely in what we each see as science fiction/fantasy rather than constrict the field (and participants, as tends to occur)--imho, of course.

Thanks, Tom and C. I've an edit job for a client to finish this coming week, but hopefully can get the piece up this month. Thank you!

Wow--just read your new stories, Jack and Jot! Each more terrific than the other--first-rate pieces. This month's stories are incredible, people.

Very interesting stories, all. I have one semi-ready, but it's too long yet.

A very fine story, Justin. And there were terrific stories from everyone this month!

Carrie, I hope you can work out a non-doubled schedule there. Been a long time since I've read a story of yours!Carrie wrote: "Dammit, I started a story, got about 80% done, then the work from home stuff started, I work from home anyway but now we have to cover all the in office work that they can't do so it's like crammin..."

Kalifer wrote: "Paula: Boiling the water will reduce the CO2 and Chlorine in the water and destroy any microorganisms in the water. You can cool it by filling a sink and lowering the pot into the sink. Distilled w..."
Kalifer, thanks. So good to know re the boiled water method. I much needed this info; thank you again. Great how much people in this group know about so much!

Fun calculators, Marianne! Thank you--very much. Marianne wrote: "Or this calculator https://www.easycalculation.com/healt...

Or this https://craftiviti.home.blog/2020/01/......"

Do any of you know how to SAFELY dilute 99% isopropyl alcohol to 70% isopropyl alcohol (after first boiling the water--if no way to distill it--and then cooling it)? I know you all will know; and googling it doesn't tell enough, unfortunately. Eyeglasses instead of goggles okay? latex gloves okay? Pouring and mixing in room with outside door open okay, or do outside only? Does boiled, instead of distilled, water make this not work, or shorten its usefulness (how long, if so)?
Thanks. "Asking for a friend."

Hey guys, Jack's story, if it's the one I read a couple of days ago, is worth reading.
Of course, it's hard to think of anything but the virus, these days.
Jot, glad to hear your nephew's recovering. And, yes, social distancing's an ethical necessity for people now.

This is great stuff, Jack (I just read piece #3 "How will this end?"). Still, for those of us in either a U.S. state or a nation that is woefully lacking in equipment and hospital (especially ICU) facilities, or way behind in getting started on testing or mitigation/distancing, and/or are older, it's only partially encouraging. And I hope very much he is right about African countries.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

Yeah, we sure weren't prepared for this. (Personally, I'm not sure human nature or humans "as a species" are so much at cause, but rather perhaps may have simply got a doozie of a "perfect storm" of an anti-aware, unimaginative, worse-than-unempathetic, self-seeking US (and UK and Brazil and...) administraton and the advent of this virus. I'm sure some researchers worry the SARS-2-coronavirus may further mutate--could get even worse; for us older personsa very real danger, and especially with supplies, hospitals, trained personnel incredibly inadequate. Like you, Jot, I can't function at this moment, either. Very glad we're talking about it here. Thanks, Jot and Kalifer, C. and Tom.