IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 715

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: inside a computer system
Event: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23343-interspecies-telepathy-human-thoughts-make-rat-move.html
Old Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_(1971_film)

Amelia Qasoori curled her lower lip, tucking it under her teeth then tapped them as she stared at the Apple 27 inch Cinema Display screen. She tapped another key on her computer.

Artem Torres tossed his backpack on the lab table, peeked over her shoulder then went to his own computer and booted it up. His screen was much smaller however and there were multiple images. All of the images were of rats.

Amelia glanced over at him and wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t know how you can stare at those ugly things all day long.”

He smirked at her and said, “I can open the cages and play with them if you’d like.”

“You’re both obscene and disgusting at the very same instant,” she said, leaning closer to her screen and tapping a section of an image. The screen was covered with tiny squares.

“What’s even more disgusting and obscene is that we’re trying to do the same thing with organic and inorganic matter.”

Amelia nodded slowly as she tapped another square then made an entry on an old-fashioned yellow notepad with an even older-fashioned pencil. She made a few more notes, then typed for several minutes. The images on the screen whirled wildly and when they were done, Artem leaned back on his lab stool, looked at the image and said, “I don’t see any difference.”

Amelia made a raspberry. “That’s because you’re a wetwareologist. You people couldn’t feel your way off a kindergartner’s graphing calculator.”

“That’s not true! I use computer modeling all the time!” He waved at his smaller computer screen. “Just because everything I do is reality instead of virtuality doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

“I’m not talking about ‘importance’ here, Art! I’m talking about relevance. What I do is relevant. What you do is...cute in a sort of old-fashioned way.”

From behind them, a stentorian voice spoke, “My two favorite high school geniuses continue to banter mindlessly, ignoring my strict instructions to MELD the techniques and technology to form something new.”

Artem and Amelia jumped to their feet, spinning around. In unison they said, “Hello, Dr. Willard.”

He nodded to them and passed between them. He was tall. Unusually tall, well over two meters tall. He patted both of them on their heads. “So, my tremendous twins, what do you have for me today?”

“Look, Dr. Willard, I can make a fine rat robot for you! There’s no need for...”

“Dr. Willard, if you get me some really great tech who won’t talk back every time I ask for something, I could have a ‘borg rat ready for you in two shakes of a…a...”

“A rat’s tail, Mr. Torres? There’s no need for me to have a biological brain, Ms. Qasoori?” He stood back and studied her screen. Then he stepped sideways and leaned forward to study Artem’s screen. Straightening, he said, “What I need, dear pupils, is a seamlessly integrated part organic-part inorganic creature to do a very, very interesting job.” He favored each one with a cold glare, then left the lab, adding without turning around, “A word from me can get you into the most select graduate study programs in the world.” He stopped in the doorway, and still without turning around, said, “A word form me can get you barred from the most pathetic study programs in the world.”

Names: ♀ Australian (NSW), Pakistan; ♂ Russian, Spanish

Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/C2nVRtyWKDsGheTkefwup8-970-80.jpg.webp

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: My Continuing Exploration of Reconciliation in the House of Science Fiction

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Eighteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.
These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

I have a deep history dealing (or NOT dealing, as the case may be) with reconciliation. I’ve written on it several times, most recently “Spiderman 3” (here’s a link to the whole thing: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2024/01/possibly-irritating-essay-spiderman-3.html); but even though “The Lego Movie”, and “Mary Poppins”, and “Star Trek: Wrath of Khan” are all father-son reconciliation scripts, I’ve never once tried to WRITE a reconciliation story, in particular a FATHER-SON reconciliation story…

Christopher Brown wrote, “one writer half-jokingly called [it] reconciliationpunk”…in the sense that, to be able to imagine authentically better futures in our stories, we need to do a better job of understanding the past. Science fiction’s joy in freeing itself from the gravity of the real world gives it an intrinsic tendency to be ahistorical.”

I said I’d return to “Interstellar”, and I will, but here I only want to point you to my essay (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2014/11/possibly-irritating-essays-interstellar.html) and say that I’m not ready to continue it yet…(I DID however pull it up and will read it (sooner, rather than later)…)

In my own, published work (see the links to the right), I don’t even see an attempt to deal with my issue…so, maybe I haven’t even tried? Maybe my limited number of publications have depended more on meeting a need or “clever story-telling” rather than writing about something important to me.

I’ll be looking into this idea of “reconciliationpunk”. He concludes the article with the following: “…utopian aspirations…are not easy to find in our science fictions…even as we populate them with more diverse and liberated communities….Reconciliation commissions in imaginary worlds are a weird way to find our way to better futures in the real one. But in a world ‘ruled by fictions of every kind,’ it takes the tools of make-believe to expose the real-world truth.” (Author of of Tropic of Kansas, co-editor of Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic. His new novel Rule of Capture.)

I have one final thought/observation that will be (most likely) dislikable at best and cause brutal accusations at worst. Brown writes in conclusion of the article, “…a lot of these broken America stories [exhibit a] desire for a kind of truth and reconciliation commission that would finally deliver justice for the crimes committed in our names by the nation-states of which we are each a constituent part, and to hold accountable the individual perpetrators of institutional wrongs.” I find this terrifying…who, precisely decides what an “institutional wrong” is? The obvious answer that comes across in this essay is that the ones who commit the “institutional wrongs” are the ones who we disagree with and who have what WE judge to be “wrong thought” or “crazy beliefs” or even “don’t have any idea what ‘they’ are talking about.” Which group of people decide what an “institutional wrong” is? The clearest answer that most people would ejaculate instantly, is “Anyone who voted for Trump and anyone who pretends to believe that Trump and his government should NOT be summarily executed without trial or consideration!”

This is…well. I’m just going to stop there because if someone who thinks my fears are ridiculous “because NORMAL people obviously want Trump and anyone who didn’t violently object to anything his government did OUT OF THERE NOW, and the Other Party will fix everything because they’re sane, unlike Trumpites.”

Short of a-Trumpers taking over completely and shutting down any dissent whatsoever, I don’t see anything even approaching “reconciliation” in our future…

So, that leads me to write about my own personal reconciliation, which is, of course where I started this essay. I can’t handle any of this…so, what makes me think I can write about characters with interpersonal reconciliation issues and how they link with the LARGER issues of societal reconciliation.

I watch the news and I live in a northern suburb of Minneapolis. (Lest you think to “tut-tut” my thoughts and worries, follow this link (Minneapolis Metro Area population = 3,757,952 residents; Minneapolis PROPER = 430,162; Brooklyn Center’s population is 31,846”. Current number of crimes in Minneapolis proper: 65.4 total crimes per 1,000 residents (roughly a 1 in 15 chance of becoming a victim of either property or violent crime); Current number of crimes in Brooklyn Center: 33.70 incidents per 1,000 to see what I am talking about: feel free to peruse this link: https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mn/brooklyn-center/crime)

We have many friends here and while we KNOW we need to be cautious, we don’t live in fear. We shop local, schooled local, (I taught in a school where 65% of students were non-white – both of my kids graduated from the school)…

So, what am I talking about reconciliation for?

It’s hard work. And maybe…just MAYBE…I can start to write about reconciliation BOTH societally and personally. Then maybe, just maybe, my fiction can begin to make a difference…

LINK: “Christopher Brown Guest Post–‘Truth and Reconciliation and Science Fiction’”; https://locusmag.com/feature/christopher-brown-guest-post-truth-and-reconciliation-and-science-fiction/
Inspiration: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/02/possibly-irritating-essays.html Image: https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/14/61/31/10/240_F_1461311036_MViWj3gBpw4LNjp4h0mdikU2gho7a51c.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 714

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: Ghost stories…

David stepped into the house long-abandoned by his great-grandparents.

Still standing after the most recent clashes between Israel, Palestine, and what his great-grandmother and her parents called, “The Annihilator of the Jews”, former UN President Alija Suleiman Muhammad Umar, now King of the Restored Umayyad Caliphate, which controlled the majority of oil left on Earth. As a Canadian citizen, he was entirely welcome in the Caliphate. As the American citizen he ACTUALLY was, he’d have been forbidden to set foot in the Middle East.

He sighed. There wasn’t really much left of their home – though he recognized a few things. The dining table that could easily seat sixteen adults. High overhead, the shelf that had held family heirlooms away from questing child hands. He smiled. When he became a man at thirteen, he’d been allowed to climb the long ladder and, taking each relic and climbing cautiously back down, he’d listened as whatever adult was nearby, give a concise (great-grandfather was NOT so concise, though his stories were full of wonder!) tale of where the object began and how it came into their hands.)

Eventually, they’d end up in the Hall of Paintings – and more recently, Holograms; and after a gift from his researcher uncle, the holograms were animated and semi-sentient. Those were his favorites.

After the Second Lightning War, funded by a conglomeration of backers who believed that the Jews had discovered and then appropriated the technology that allowed the manipulation of gravity, most of Jerusalem had fallen into ruin and continued to decay. He sighed and reached out to take hold of a rung of the ladder. Only seven steps remained, but he held them gingerly as if they would break away if he sneezed on them.

At that idea, he sneezed.

“Bless you,” said a voice. It wasn’t a Human voice – he was considered the most skilled Speech/Voice Recognition Technologist in the Solar Commonwealth – besides, it had spoken in Old Hebrew.

David said, “Who is that?” The voice echoed back in Old Hebrew. David spoke again in American English.

The voice said, “Who would you say that I am?”

David made a face, the said, “Very funny. You’re obviously some sort of joker…”

“I am not,” the voice said in Old Hebrew.

David scowled. Shaking his head, he replied in the same language, “First guess is that you’re the ghost of Christmas Past.”

The voice hummed, then replied in 20th Century English instead, “Remarkably close. I am the voice of an AI who has come to visit disaster on a world that mocks and assumes it’s better than any society that has evolved on Earth – and any society that will ever arise on this planet. I am the Ruach of Vengeance…”

Event: https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/ghosts-of-a-holy-war-the-1929-massacre-in-palestine-that-ignited-the-arab-israeli-conflict
Names: ; ♂ David Shain­berg ♀ Ruach ("spirit" or "wind", usually, “ghost”), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Jerusalem
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 15

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stores. Knox was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways the rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered. When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?” I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox? We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes! Inspired by Matt Weir’s writing of THE MARTIAN as a series of blog entries, the result of MY online storytelling continues below.

The last story entry was a LONG time ago, so, I’ll give a paragraph and continue from there (If you want to start again, Start here, click on the JAX LUNAR LUMBER tag, then skip Chapter 14 and pick up the story right after these events…)

Sturdlan Vilbix – known to our entire family by a disrespectful nickname as Turdman -- was the personal manager of Roza Rymbayeva Golovkina, a famous Kazakh singer and song-writer. She was a very-distant descendant of the last Human to walk on the Moon in the 20th Century – Eugene Andrew Cernan. He’d been the Last Lunar Walker, and his descendant, under the tutelage of Turdman who’d capitalized an otherwise mediocre career as her manager and his relentless mentioning of her five-times-great-grandfather’s fame.

He’d also had the great misfortune to alienate the Gang of Four, my grandchildren, Noah, Natalie, Ronan and Lennon.

On this fine day and their arrival on the original SPACE STATION COURAGE, Turdman had tried to hurry me into some dark corner thinking he could make me disappear so he could take over our business and add it to his empire. Turdman grabbed me by the bicep and squeezed. It HURT! He had muscles trained under the full gravity of the world that had nurtured Humanity into intelligence.

Now, here he was steering me further into Jax Lunar Lumber’s first jump station to our holdings on the Moon, using gestures to station dozens of drones in the ceiling, on the floor, on desks, in trees, and anywhere their cameras – I was pretty sure the glittering light twirling around the back and belly of each one was a camera designed to record, broadcast, and recreate every scene, every motion, and every nuance of the Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter-Of-The-Last-Lunar-Walker – or “Six-T-Granddaughter-OT Last Lunar Walker”. That quickly morphed to Antichrist, or 6T for short.

He’d dismissed The Gang of Four (with their current Accomplice Zachary). I smiled as the Gang pushed him aside as they surrounded us. The faceplate of his spacesuit had abruptly malfunctioned – Lennon raised her eyebrows at me, baring her teeth like fangs – as Turdman’s voice cut off.

She grabbed my hand as the Women made off with the World-Famous And Very Important Ms. Golovkina, the famous Kazakh singer. The young men picked up Turdman, slapped a highly-alcohol-dosed suit patch on his absurd stage outfit, adding a small injection of cheap beer to his water bottle – which he’d been slurping since he’d come aboard the Station, and hurried him away to destination Empty-Air-Lock. His protests were oddly slurred.

Natalie and Lennon sandwiched Antichrist between them, carrying her away, disappearing smoothly through a holographic DO NOT ENTER: DECOMPRESSION ZONE BEYOND wall. Ms. Golovkina screamed. Or tried to. Natalie offered her a popular, expensive bonbon named after her.

“Get that freaking disgusting thing away from me!” she shouted, spitting it out.

Lennon leaned in and said, “I thought they were your favorites?”

“They’re The Idiots favorite.” She paused, “Think you guys could make this kidnapping permanent?”

The Girls said together, “Really, Lady Golovkina?”

Just before the hologram reappeared, she said, “I’d give you the passwords to The Idiot’s Private Money Stashes if you make me disappear for good.” The hologram flicked back on and they were gone, Noah, Ronan, and Zack staring after them, still holding the cussing and crying Turdman between them. They looked at each other, all popping evil grins, and shoved the squirming Turdman ahead of them.

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways

Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YkAeUwwE2aksDqd5tgwyec-970-80.jpg.webp

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: What EXACTLY Am I Trying To Say With My Writing…Is It A GOOD Thing, Or A Selfish Thing?

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Eighteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to

Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/. 

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.
I’m hard at work writing a short story for my favorite magazine on Earth, ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT – it’s a story pulled out of my novel MARTIAN HOLIDAY and hopefully it will be for ANALOG.

But is that a “good thing”? Is it self-centered? Lately, I’ve been wondering what is it I’ve been trying to say all theses years…I’m gonna ignore my essays, because they have a very particular goal in mind every time I write one. They say essays come in various categories, (persuasive, informative, argumentative, critical, personal, comparative, how to)and I’m pretty sure I can yank each one from the several hundred I’ve written over the years. I recently had a query from someone whose job is “Author Brand Architect & Publishing Strategist”. I have some idea what that is now, but after talking to my wife and my daughter (who is a successful writer (as well as a mental health therapist, focusing on adolescents) – we decided that it sounded a bit too far into the “too good to be true” camp. Enthusiastic and polite, but…well, I’ve decided not to pursue that.

At any rate, I’ve been wondering what exactly it IS I’m trying to say to the world – in particular in my fiction. I think I’ve hesitated for some time because I’m AFRAID of what I’ve been trying to say all these years. So…finally, I think I’ll take a few of the stories I know BEST and tell you what I’m trying to say in them…

Certainly Orson Scott Card is “…speaking to this (maybe in more than one story): “This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.” ― Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s…”writing primarily focuses on feminist retellings of mythology and history. She often subverted patriarchal narratives by shifting the focus to female perspectives, exploring the clash between pagan matriarchal traditions and emerging Christianity, and examining themes of personal freedom and morality.”

Lois McMaster Bujold's writing “…explores themes of overcoming adversity, the power of empathy, and the triumph of intellect over physical might. She often highlights characters with disabilities or those marginalized by society…”

Steven Brust “…explores the tension between personal ambition and the consequences of one's choices. Through his signature "Cool Stuff Theory of Literature" (writing stories about what he finds coolest), he masks sharp, egalitarian socio-political critiques.”

Bruce Bethke “… confronts Cynicism Toward Authority and Revolution: His broader writings look at the absurdities of power, often highlighting the cycles where revolutionary movements ultimately get replaced by equally oppressive authoritarian rule.”

C.S. Lewis “…wrote his Space Trilogy (also known as the Ransom Trilogy) to combat the rising tide of secular humanism, scientific materialism, and technocracy. He argued that humanity's dream of conquering and colonizing the universe without God was a dangerous and spiritually empty ideology.”

CJ Cherryh’s “…science fiction…explores the realities of human survival, political pragmatism, and the profound difficulty of understanding genuinely alien minds. Rather than focusing on miraculous technologies, she examines how individuals, cultures, and species navigate social inertia, maintain institutions, and adapt to survive…”

So, how about me? I DID run across this in an essay I wrote in February of 2022: “I guess I adhere to the MASH ‘school of writing’: deal with a serious issue; and (in the best episodes), reveal a humorous side to the deadly side. I’ll need to remember that in the story I’m writing right now.”

That’s given me an idea – maybe I need to go back to what I’ve written in the past. There must be SOME hints of what I’m doing with my writing in among the past 19 years of nattering on about myself and what interests me! Besides, while I KNOW the number doesn’t reflect the “number of fans” I have, it DOES reflect (actually COUNTS) the number of times people have visited my website:

That seems to be a few…

or a bit more on “what I’m trying to say”, follow the link to an essay by me published by SFWA in July of 2012 (I know, fourteen years ago! But I find my thoughts are still pretty much the same…) here: https://sfwa.org/2012/07/11/guest-post-when-did-science-fiction-and-apocalypse-become-interchangeable/

I also answered some questions on goodreads when EMERALD OF EARTH came out a few years ago. You can read it here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/1229225.Guy_Stewart/questions

But the question still remains for ME to answer, “What am I trying to say?” I think it may be a good idea to READ WHAT I'VE WRITTEN! It also wouldn't hurt if anyone reading this would respond and tell me what YOU think I'm trying to say!

Inspiration: My Own Work and other writers I admire.
Image: https://austinkleon.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/85167617_1212494135614198_5965732498133583053_n.jpg

I Needed THIS To Be EASILY Available...it wasn't until now!

 

SLICE OF PIE: Our Unlikely Love for ENOLA HOLMES and the Genre of the MYSTERY...and others...

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Eighteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.
These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

Seeing the advertising for the first ENOLA HOLMES (2020 movie Netflix) brought out a feeling of, “Of all the IDIOTIC STUFF on NORMALLY idiotic television (my father called the television the “idiot box” (this was when the thing actually WAS a box holding a cathode ray tube…). My wife had the same reaction.

A couple nights ago, we were searching for something new along the lines of “The Thursday Murder Club” movie – nothing too difficult to watch, nothing to strain the brain, but clever, snarky, and with a touch of humor.

The search turned up the usual suspects, almost all of which we’ve seen. Now, I KNOW I am well-known as a SF fan and writer and that it perfectly just! However, several years ago, I developed a taste for the detective Walt Longmire (Did I ever mention that I also LOATHE Westerns? I do.), and in a strange turn of events, Brent Spiner (STAR TREK’s Mr. Data) played Sherlock Holmes in the movie, FIRST CONTACT…which was actually a Star Trek full-length movie!

One of the movies ranked with That included ENOLA HOLMES. With a heavy sigh, we decided to give it a try, but had a few other movies in the queue which we could reasonably spend a few hours mindlessly watching.

The “blurb” for the BOOKS was…questionable…at best (though the first and a later one were both awarded Edgars (YA lit’s equivalent of SF’s HUGO, and movie’s Academy Award): “The Enola Holmes Mysteries…[star] Enola Holmes…14-year-old sister of…Sherlock Holmes, twenty years her senior. The…series borrows characters and settings from the established canon of Sherlock Holmes, but the Enola character is Springer's creation and specific to this series.” The 14-year-old Enola is the same age as our granddaughter…who is also into mystery, murder, and mayhem…she ALSO has a wicked sense of humor. Figure Holmes himself is usually represented with something of a sharp (or wicked) wit, we hoped that Enola might have some of that.

With further study, we found that the two were NOT quite the same: “A 2020 mystery film starring Millie Bobby Brown as the title character, the teenage sister of the already famous Victorian-era detective Sherlock Holmes. The film is directed by Harry Bradbeer from a screenplay by Jack Thorne that adapts the first novel in The Enola Holmes Mysteries series by Nancy Springer. In the film, Enola travels to London to find her missing mother but ends up on a thrilling adventure, pairing up with a runaway lord as they attempt to solve a mystery that threatens the entire country. In addition to Brown, the film also stars Sam Claflin, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter (who, BTW was ALSO Bellatrix Lestrange, evil witch in four Harry Potter movies).

To arms, then: it turns out that you can’t see a movie by it’s title or blurb…Enola Holmes was truly fantastic! As such, it compelled us to NOT immediately blitz through the other two without a care in the world! We waited a few days before watching EH 2 last night; and we MIGHT last through the night tonight without watching EH 3! (Maybe…) The question was WHY was was it SO FREAKILY GOOD?

First of course, was that “Sherlock Holmes”! Really, how much more compulsion do you need? The character “…holds the Guinness World Record for the most-portrayed literary human character in film and television. Estimates indicate that over 75 to 130 actors have played the detective on screen, with comprehensive lists (including stage and audio productions) featuring nearly 350 actors…” https://www.imdb.com/list/ls098162253/

Secondly, I just realized that both SF and Mystery are what are called “genre literature” which is, by definition…”any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time…” The genres most of us are familiar with besides SF and Mystery are (off the top of my head) spy, fantasy, horror, Western – though it appears not even the EXPERTS know how many genres there are. Seems to be some number between three https://www.thoughtco.com/genre-in-literature-1690896; to seven; to 28; to 35; to 113…to (I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to count them) several HUNDRED (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_genres)...

Sherlock Holmes is possibly even his OWN genre! I write “hard science fiction” – which is what MARTIAN HOLIDAY is…but it has a religious flavor to it as well (Christian, witchcraft (there’s a coven), and Buddhism (the Dalai Llama of Mars puts in an appearance), as well as the United Faith in Humanity.

All of this to say that my wife and I watched Enola Holmes 2 (2022): “In September 2020, co-producer and star Millie Bobby Brown (16 in the movie rather than the books’ 14)…an original story based on the real 1888 matchgirls' strike and the life of labor activist Sarah Chapman…to advance her career as a detective (or a “finder of things” [she] has to work with others and not just be reliant on herself. It's a story that goes from 'I' to 'we', and that is a story of sisterhood.” We will soon be watching Enola Holmes 3…

I think I’d like to try my hand at a Sherlock Holmes on Mars story…or even better, invent my OWN sleuth…maybe a retired science teacher who’s looking for something to do in his retirement.

Hmmm…

Inspiration and references: ENOLA HOLMES 1, 2, 3; Bellatrix Lestrange (four HARRY POTTER movies; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millie_Bobby_Brown; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 39: Wanna Be An Asteroid Miner When You Grow Up?

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…
Today’s Source: https://www.planetary.org/articles/chinas-tianwen-2-mission-has-probably-arrived-at-a-quasi-moon-of-earth (June 24, 2026)

Oddly enough, under the influence of my son (there’s a LONG and fascinating story there about the ASTRONOMICAL advance of his reading skills and interest since first grade…) I found out that HE read THREE BODY PROBLEM by Liu Cixin (as I am interested in words and language, his name is pronounced “lee-oh ts'-uh-sheen” – Or as it reads on the cover of the book (incorrectly, apparently) Cixin Liu). So, I’m reading it now.

At any rate, the race to mine space (not with exploding mines, but taking ores from asteroids and refining it on Earth (or…in space, but I think that’s a DIFFERENT story!) appears to have started:

“Asa Stahl, PhD; Science Editor at The Planetary Society wrote on May 21, 2024: “Earth hosts seven known quasi-moons, an unknown number of minimoons, and maybe, sometimes, two ghost moons. Though none of these pseudo-moons are as big or influential as Earth’s one true natural satellite — the Moon — they are still valuable for science and exploration. Quasi- and minimoons offer promising targets for future space missions, a window into our planet’s neighborhood, and a sampling of the sort of asteroids that could potentially hit Earth.”

He wrote in an article posted June 24, 2026 that, “China’s Tianwen-2 mission has (probably) arrived at a quasi-moon of Earth.” Andrew Jones, also an editor at TPS, notes, “… around July 4, we [should] get the confirmation that, ‘Yes, Tianwen-2 is in its desired orbit, here's an image.’” EDITORIAL SNARK: It is ALMOST certainly sheer coincidence that China will land on a moon (quasi or otherwise) around the 250th Anniversary of the US and “roughly” 57 years after Neil Armstrong, et al landed on the Moon in 1969…

Back to mining! https://fortune.com/2026/07/02/china-private-space-industry-landspace-geely-spacex-rainer-zitelmann/ Fortune magazine reported that “Initially, Chinese policymakers did not take Elon Musk’s company particularly seriously. But as Falcon 9 dramatically lowered launch costs through reusability and SpaceX began dominating global launch markets, attitudes changed. Chinese leaders recognized that they could not rely solely “the government to mine/colonize/pioneer space”. As a result, hundreds of commercial space companies emerged. Many were founded by engineers who previously worked for state-owned aerospace organizations but became frustrated with bureaucracy and slow decision-making. By 2022, China had approximately 430 private space companies. By 2024, the combined value of the country’s 100 largest space firms was estimated at roughly $100 billion.”

CHINA is getting excited about space and mining the asteroids, while WE diddle around, assuming that American dominance in space was a given and we now have more important things to do – like play video games, own more powerful cell phones, and buy more stuff…led by a self-centered billionaire whose sole vision involves remodeling swimming pools and rebuilding extravagant ballrooms…Americans will shortly find themselves farther behind the “unAmerican” powers that we did when Germany invaded Poland and Japan surreptitiously took over the US AFTER the WWII…with manufacturing and technology.

“The United States still enjoys a significant advantage [over China]. Measured against SpaceX alone, the gap remains substantial. But that comparison can be misleading. China has built remarkable depth across the entire industry. In launch services, satellites, communications technologies, and space manufacturing, dozens of Chinese companies are now competing simultaneously.

“The history of Chinese industry reveals a familiar pattern: first imitation, then improvement — and finally innovation. This evolution has already occurred in sectors such as automobiles, batteries, telecommunications, and consumer electronics. There is little reason to assume that space will be different.”

If anyone reading this is planning on being an asteroid miner, I would suggest you make like the Iron Rangers in central Minnesota did at one point in the 1940s, “…due to the diverse immigrant workforce, many spoken interactions in the mines and surrounding communities occurred in Finnish, Slovenian, Croatian, and Italian…” (https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/immigration-iron-range-1880-1930)...

START LEARNING CHINESE!

“What’s a quasi-moon?” Funny you should ask… https://www.planetary.org/articles/the-quasi-moons-of-earth
Planetary Society article: https://www.planetary.org/articles/the-quasi-moons-of-earth
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Interesting Stuff The Might Apply To Mining Asteroids: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgej7gzg8l0o

Image: https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000087284388-7gj0v4-t500x500.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 712

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: Benevolent Alien Invasion (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BenevolentAlienInvasion)
Current Event: http://fortune.com/2016/06/01/poverty-simulation-camps/

Landon Smith shaded his eyes as he looked up into the crystal clear Nebraska sky. September was an odd time for an Alien invasion. “What do you suppose this group wants to see?” he asked the girl next to him as he pulled off his cowboy hat and wiped at the band of sweat. Even though school had already started, it was still a scorcher. Clarkson in Omaha had drawn him from his hometown with the brass ring of the first full-scale Theoretical Alien Psychology and Philosophy PhD in the country.

Olivia Williams had come for the same reason, though she hated the fact that she’d also promised to the college place-kicker on the football team. She sighed. She STILL wished people wanted her for mind more than her extra-point record. She said, “The same as all of them – poverty-stricken Earth People.”

“Yeah, but…” he began.

“Why come here and not Harlem or…”

“Addis Ababa or Dakar…”

“Or any of a hundred other places?”

“Why here?” they said together.

“It’s not like they talk to anyone – or even pay us any attention. We could be stray cats as far as they’re concerned.”

“Have you ever watched one of their ‘poverty retreats’?” Landon said as they first pallet jack rolled past with a platform of weird aliens. He knew he wasn’t supposed to feel that way, but they were all but incomprehensible to him – or any other Human for that matter. Not one single alien conformed to a body layout that even remotely resembled something on Earth. The “parallel evolutionists” were rethinking their theories at an alarming rate. The Laws of Evolution were being seriously considered as totally outmoded and insufficient to explain, well…anything living. One of the reasons he’d decided to major in TAPP.

“They’re so weird, they aren’t even creepy. Even in my worst nightmare I wouldn’t have been able to imagine these intelligences.”

“That’s why they aren’t particularly scary.” Landon said, “They don’t remind us of ourselves in any way, so they CAN’T be frightening. They’re…alien.”

They said the last word together again. She shrugged, “Well, I for one am looking for some way of breaking through their indifference.”

“You don’t hold with Feng Youlan’s theory that they simply cannot see us – that we’re so far outside of their realm of experience that their brains can’t interpret us at all?”

She laughed and they walked away, arm in arm. Behind them, one of the aliens twitched something that might have been an eye and might have blinked in what could be thought of as interest.

Names: ♀ common Arkansas names, ; ♂ common Idaho names
Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/C2nVRtyWKDsGheTkefwup8-970-80.jpg.webp

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #38: “Agatha Christie & Me”

In this series, I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect to my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome! For example, “Agatha Christie was a prolific short story writer. She wrote 153 short stories collected in 14 original books, (and also wrote 66 detective novels) featuring famous sleuths like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. So, without further ado, short story observations by Agatha Christie – with a few from myself...)

Christie's work has sold more copies than both Shakespeare and the traditional King James Bible. She DID write GREAT WORKS that had a profound impact on the mystery genre in the English-speaking world. But she also wrote lots of short stories. But what did she have to say about WRITING them?

1. Start Your Plot
“There is always, of course, that terrible three weeks…when you are trying to get started on a [book] story. There is no agony like it.”

2. Let Your Plot Develop
“Christie found her ideas by letting her mind run wild while she was busy doing other things.” It’s NOT new or unique. It’s ALSO fun!

3. Use What Interests YOU
Christie had MANY interests: medicine, archaeology, card playing, psychic stuff, her dog, world travel, nature, and just living life to its fullest. I love science, science fiction, camping, biking, and the culture of the schools I’ve worked in, plus other countries I’ve been to. All of these can help your plot.

4. Plot Your Character’s Flaws
We ALL like to read about characters like US – except THEY can do things we can’t! Christie created one of the greatest fictional detectives of all time. This did not mean she liked Hercule Poirot! Develop your character’s background, flaws, sharp edges, and history...even though the reader might NEVER see these.

5. Plotting Characters & Their Potential
Christie once wrote that “In everyone there arises from time to time the wish to kill, though almost NEVER the will to kill.” I use my writing skills to create “monsters”, aliens, and then TONS of stress, and suspense to drive every story. Christie embraced the “dark side” of people by using her knowledge of psychology.

6. LET Cause & Effect Drive Your Plot
“To get at the cause for a thing, we have to study what happened.” Two of the most important questions for a fiction writer. ‘What if?’ leads to the WHY. ‘What happens next?’ is important for the WHAT HAPPENS. That’s cause and effect at work. If this happens, what will happen next? OUTLINE YOUR STORY! Writers can expect to spend hours alone while plotting, writing, and editing. Some writers prefer to share the task; others like Christie liked to plot alone?

FINALLY.
Mastering plot is not easy, but Christie shows that great storytelling comes down to precision, misdirection, and careful planning. Whether you’re crafting a complex mystery or simply trying to keep readers turning the pages, these tips offer a timeless blueprint for success. Use them to deepen suspense and deliver endings your readers will never see coming.

References: https://anarrativeoftheirown.substack.com/p/writing-rituals-of-agatha-christie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUBdgv38SF4,  https://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie/how-christie-wrote, https://www.reddit.com/r/agathachristie/comments/1asnltb/what_are_the_short_agatha_books/
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320