IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 48

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.

H Trope: amusement park goes berserk

Current Event: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/11/us-theme-park-death-idUSTRE76A64O20110711

After watching the old, old movie, DOC HOLLYWOOD last night, I was once again reminded that I LOVE small-town carnivals. We experienced a number of them when we lived in rural Wisconsin in 1994 and for me, the nighttime lights, music, crowds and laughter never fail to delight (can you tell I’m reading Jane Austen’s NORTHANGER ABBEY?)

But I’m sure there’s a dark side to these events as well.

Who among us doesn’t know a child terrified of clowns? Indeed, MOST children are terrified of the apparitions at one time or another. We also know that with carnivals come clowns…and when an amusement park has been around for a long time and has run down…and there’s been a death on the grounds…

On a sweltering, record-heat summer day with nothing else to do, fourteen-year-old Wakou Itou and his friends scoot under the fence of a nearby amusement park and have themselves a fun day – mostly by following cute girls, scaring animals and mocking park workers.

Especially one of the clowns at the entrance of the (very) unbusy “Kiddie Land”.

Security chases them away a few times; and once the clown himself gets mad and chases after them, a well-thrown rock from him catches Wakou in the ear. Furious he turns to beat up the clown – and security walks around the corner.

Him and his friends leave the “Kiddie Land” to go to the closed roller coaster, Plunge Of Death. It’s been closed for a month while police and other authorities investigate the death of an Iraq War veteran who plunged from the heights in an as-yet unexplained accident.

Wakou and friends spend half an hour looking for the exact place he hit the ground by looking for blood stains. The sun goes down and the closing of the park is imminent.

“Let’s go kick that stupid clown’s butt,” Wakou exclaims and leads the pack back to “Kiddie Land”. Overhead, there’s a flash of heat lightning and Wakou feels a strange surge of something at the back of his neck. Ahead, the lights of “Kiddie Land” flicker, blaze then fade. Under the arch of lights, the clown is staring at them. His red wig seems to glow…

Image: http://sheltergirl.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/clown-nph.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Who Does Jesus REALLY Love?

Does Jesus love vampires?

My daughter answered that question in her novel, REDFINING EVIL (at one time soon-to-be-published, now cancelled-because-of-inefficiency): http://www.o-my-soul.net/redefining-evil.html.

Does Jesus love Gentiles?

That stunning question was answered with a resounding, “Yes!” Matthew 12:21 says, “…and in His name the Gentiles will hope.”

Does Jesus love zombies?

He must, because he lovingly brought us Lazarus – “When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth [from the tomb where he had been dead for four days].’” (John 12:43)

Does Jesus love Godzilla?

Probably, as His Father gave over the oceans for His pets to play in, “There is the sea, great and broad, in which are swarms without number, animals both small and great. There the ships move along, and Leviathan, which you have formed to sport in it…” (Psalm 104:25-26)

Does Jesus love aliens?

Oh, yeah! “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household…” (Ephesians 2: 19)

I poke around all of this though to bring us to the place I recently found myself and the question I was faced with: Does Jesus loved the disembodied brain? You know, like Abby Normal, whose brain was use to animate Frankenstein’s Monster in YOUNG FRANKESTEIN.

Does Jesus love disembodied brains?

The WORD “brain” isn’t mentioned in any version of the Bible that I can search using my search engine, http://www.biblegateway.com/, so I’m going to have to do a bit of punting here. As the brain is the seat of that invisible thing called “mind”, I did a search on that term and was overwhelmed – 167 references to “mind” in the New American Standard version of the Bible. Most of the references have to do with “keep/set your mind”, “on your mind” and “call to mind”.

A bit more research brought me this interesting tidbit. In English, “mind” is morally neutral. In Old and New Testament times, “mind” has a profound moral context. There is an “evil” mind (eight references to “mind” and “evil”, including Colossians 1:21 and Exodus 10:10). There is also a “renewed mind” (Romans 12:3) and the “mind of Christ” (which we have in I Corinthians 2:16). So there’s a clear dichotomy of mind in the Bible. We are even exhorted to love the Lord with all our heart and mind (Luke 10:27).

 But it doesn’t say anything about whether Jesus could or would love the mind and/or brain of Abby Normal. I must rely therefore on circumstantial evidence.

In the incident in which Jesus is called upon to heal a demoniac, He does so despite the fact that his followers were unable to make any inroad whatsoever. In the denouement, Jesus and the former demoniac have taken tea together and the Bible clearly says that he was “sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind”. (Luke 18:35)

While this is hardly conclusive evidence and I will have to wait until I get to Heaven and am able to examine the “many other things that Jesus did” that are unrecorded here (John 21:25); I can say with confidence that even if Jesus doesn’t “love” the disembodied brain, he is certainly willing to take tea with it.

Jesus loves us ALL, no matter what our current state of existence!

Your thoughts?

Image: http://planetpov.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/abby-normal-brain.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 47

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.

F Trope: illegal drugs open gate to wonder

Current Event: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/03/limitless_ten_percent_myth.html

It’s a search Humanity has been on for a zazillion years – a magic drug that would give us INSTANT sight into the future or the past or the present or the neighbors closet…

Science has given a patina of respectability to this search for the mystic by telling us (somewhere or other) that we only use 10% of our brain and that we really need to get on to the discovery that would lead us to be able to use the other 90% to perform all sorts of wonderful “stuff”.

Signe Bengtsson grew up in a home with parents who are no-nonsense psychiatrists, feet firmly rooted in reality and brain chemistry. For them, there is nothing outside of the material world of wet electrical circuits and chemical reactions. For them everything mind is explainable.

Dad has a heart attack because of stress (which is, Signe notes during an anger jag, invisible); though what she doesn't know is that Daddy has been using ritalin as a focus enhancer while he wrote a series of articles for publication that he desperately needs... Clot-dissolving drugs and blood thinners combine in him to send him into an hallucinogenic state that she witnesses as her dad dreams and talks about a strangely realistic-seeming world in which he has an adventure that ultimately ends in him running off with a circlet of metal forged in that world.

Signe falls asleep and wakes up the next morning; the nurse says that her dad is out of the dark but will be sleeping a lot for the next few weeks. She stands up and a heavy wire circle slides from her lap and falls to the floor, ringing like a bell, deeply. The sound seems to penetrate, ringing the bones in her head then fades slowly.

With the circlet in one hand and the arrival of her mother, she hurries off to school; exhausted and shaken…

Image: http://img1.etsystatic.com/il_570xN.1581169.jpg

WRITING ADVICE – Kristine Kathryn Rusch #8: Recommended Reading List

I first ran across the work of Kristine Kathryn Rusch when her name appeared on the bottom of a standard rejection form I got from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, where she was head editor for several years. A short time later, I ran across one of her short stories (“Retrieval Artist” in the June 2000 ANALOG), which of course, led me t0 her RETRIEVAL ARTIST novels. I’m a fan now and started reading her blog (http://kriswrites.com/) a year or more ago. As always, I look for good writing advice to pass on to you as well as applying it to my own writing. I have her permission to quote from the articles. You can find the complete article referenced below here: http://kriswrites.com/?s=April+2011

I could easily generate a Recommended Reading List, but the fact of the matter is that no one would really be interested.

“Recommendations” have to carry weight in order to interest people.

People carry weight because of their notoriety and I am not notorious...I’m not noted anywhere, either.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has notoriety. David Brin has notoriety. Stephen King has notoriety.

So I thought I’d share a few #1 Books that Writers Should Read according to 10 different websites:

BIRD BY BIRD  Anne Lamott [pastemagazine.com]

THE ANTI 9-5   Michelle Goodman [about.com/freelance-writing]

THE KING JAMES BIBLE  [copyblogger.com]

THE ELEMENT OF STYLE   Strunk and White  [karenbarnes.hubpages.com]

WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL   Donald Maass  [writersedgeinfo.blogspot.com]

WRITING DOWN THE BONES  Natalie Goldberg  [amazon.com]

WRECK THIS JOURNAL  Keri Smith  [barnesandnoble.com]

THE SITUATION AND THE STORY  Vivian Gornick   [flashlightworthy.com]

ON WRITING WELL  William Zinsser  [infobarrel.com]

ON WRITING  Stephen King  [tabbedbooks.wordpress.com]

Strangely enough, seven professional organizations that might have made recommendations that carried weight – Writers Guild of America; Christian Writers Guild; The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators; the Horror; Romance; Science Fiction and Fantasy; and Mystery...Writers of America (based on a brief Google search) have nothing to say about the 10 Best Books for Writers. [There’s an interesting challenge to do something about!]

Seeing there doesn’t seem to be any authority speaking, I’ll add my OWN Ten Best Books For Writers:

WRITING SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY  Orson Scott Card – the single best writing book I recommend: elegant, useful, understandable, brilliant

KOMARR  Lois McMaster Bujold – a “bottom of the ladder”, deeply imagined character who chooses excellence

STARTIDE RISING  David Brin – brilliant world building

WORLD BUILDING  Stephen L. Gillette – a clear reference for alien world building

BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES AND ENDS  Nancy Kress – perfect for writing superior ones

COMEDY WRITING SECRETS  Melvin Helitzer – everyone needs to laugh, this genius shows you how to make people do it

WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL  Donald Maass – simply incredible

WALKING ON WATER  Madeleine L’Engle – demonstrates how to share a deep faith without offense

XENOGENESIS SERIES  Ocatvia Butler – pure beauty of language and subtle idea

CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT – startling in its originality and depth of character

Do YOU have a Top Ten Best Books for Writers list?

Image: http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2010/07/25/topten_2.jpg

RECONSTRUCTION OF MAI LI HASTINGS 34

I read the play version of Daniel Keyes’ FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON when I was in eighth grade. It has stayed with me for decades, a haunting symbol for both the overwhelming possibilities of the human intellect and the overwhelming impossibilities faced by a profoundly challenged human mind. I’ve started and stopped this novel a half a dozen times in eleven years. I want to bring the original idea into the present millennium. To read RECONSTRUCTION from beginning to here, click on the label to the right and scroll four pages back until you get to the bottom.

CJ waved to Mr. Jalfroun and said to Job, “I gotta go!”

“We just got here!” he exclaimed.

“Mai Li needs me to do something or get something for her.”

“What’m I s’posed to tell Mr. Jalfroun? He saw you!”

“Tell him my sister called me in sick!”

CJ ran to his bike and unlocked it and sprinted out of the parking lot. He got home in record time, ran into the house and shouted, “Mai Li! Mai Li!”

There was no answer. He dropped his backpack and ran to Mai Li’s room.

Empty.

“Mai Li!” Silence.

He ran upstairs to Mom’s room.

Empty.

“Mai Li!” He spun frantically. The rooms were all open and there was no Mai Li. He ran down to the main level – again all the rooms were open and there was no Mai Li. “Mai Li!” He ran to the kitchen then pounded down the steps to his bedroom.

Slumped over his desk was his sister. He didn’t move, waiting for her to sit up. Yell at him about his under-the-bed stash; yell at him for sneaking up on her; yell at him for being her idiot brother.

She didn’t move and he was suddenly afraid to step forward. What if she was dead? He didn’t know if he could handle that. What would he do? Who would he call? Could he call the ambulance? What if Dr. Douchebag got hold of her? He’d dissect her like they’d dissected the frog in science class a few weeks ago!

His feet moved on their own. His hand moved on its own. He touched her shoulder. She sat up slowly, turned to look at him. She held his gaze, blinking slowly. The look wasn’t the Cheerios look, but it wasn’t the ambulance look, either. It was somewhere between.

She was going away from him.

She said suddenly, “What the heck are you looking at?”

“Uhh...” he replied brilliantly.

“Maybe I’ve been wrong all along – maybe you aren’t an idiot and really retarded.”

“Hey!” he flashed, “You called me home and I came! I was at school...”

“Like anything was going to happen there,” she snapped back.

“Fine, then! I’ll go back. You can explain to Mom why I’m tardy, then!”

“Fine! I will, you little idiot!”

He started back up the stairs, stomping as loud as he could.

“You’re acting like a child!”

He turned and shouted, “That’s ‘cause I am a child! What’s your excuse, Lady Genius Smarter Than The Whole World?” He reached the top of the stairs, expecting a verbal spear in the back like that movie THROUGH GATES OF SPLENDOR 3D.

He reached the top and stomped into the kitchen, being sure he hit the floor as hard as he could with each foot. It would be incredibly loud over her head in the basement room. He reached the front door which still stood open after his frantic search for her. “A lot of good that did,” he muttered.

Even so, he stopped with his hand on the door, listening.

“Chris?” she said his name softly with none of the anger from a moment ago.

He went back to the basement door and stood at the top, staring down the steps. He said, “What?”

“I’m sorry.”

He took a step down, softly this time. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m dying and I can’t do anything about it.”

Three more steps, “You’re not dying – maybe going back to what you were before the nanomachines.”

Long pause, then she said, “Explain to me how that’s not the same thing as dying.”

CJ didn’t have an answer. Instead, he knew he was selfish but couldn’t keep the question inside, “Am I going to still be able to read when...when...the nanomachines are done rebuilding your brain?”

Mai Li snorted and said, “Nah, idiot brother. You learned how to read all by yourself.” Long pause, “Me? I needed the nanos to make me, and now they’re going to unmake me. What have I got to whine about?”

Without knowing exactly why, CJ stepped down all the way, went to his sister and started bawling like a toddler who skinned his knee for the first time.

Image: http://x7e.xanga.com/750e100056132280486653/m223444537.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 46

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.

SF Trope: Human males get pregnant

Current Event: http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2008/04/05/pregnant-males-and-a-lost-civilisation/

Yernar Batyr is no stranger to sexual orientation discussions – his fathers have lived together for fifteen years; his biological mother was a surrogate who was also a stripper; his grandfather changed his gender (no one knows whether the change included surgery or not). He is accepting, popular and well-known.

He’s also straighter than an arrow and has a totally normal girlfriend at a normal, northern California high school in the “smaller” town of Susanville – a town of 20,000 that is best known as the location of the High Desert State Prison. It hates the reputation that comes from being “Californians”. They see themselves as a small town, even though they are less than a 100 miles north of Reno, Nevada.

Of course, this is why no one is surprised when aliens land in town one day.

What is a surprise is that they have four sexes.

It’s also a surprise that they are fighting – really fighting. With guns and bombs and high-energy weapons.

And they brought their kids – all six hundred and thirty-two of them. They need to get rid of some, so they spray them with a hormone that induces a competition reflex and then they let them go to Thin in the mountains.

Yernar is hiking on the desert with several buddied one day when a pack of the alien young attack HIM; running for their lives, they’re scooped up by an alien creature driving a massive ATV who informs them that if they don’t stop the kids, their quaint little geometric human corral will be overrun and its cattle eaten…

Image: http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Bug,%20M1.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Writers Exposing Themselves

I’d planned  something entirely different for today.

Then on the way home from installing my daughter into a college dorm for the remainder of the school year, I had a revelation.

My writing is about leaving.

Among the first two stories I sold to big markets – “A Pig Tale” (ANALOG May 2000) and “Mystery on Space Station Courage” (CRICKET 1997) – both were about leaving. The ANALOG story was about a biochemist who has discovered a cure for Alzheimer’s whose father tries to kill himself because he’s losing the family farm. She rewrites his memories because she doesn’t want to leave her past any messier than it is.  In the CRICKET story, the protagonist recently lost her father in a space accident and she’s been grounded because she’s not dealing well. She can’t leave her room and must devise a way to rescue a trapped space worker.

A story I just finished “Invoking Fire” involves a young man whose adoptive father has just passed away, their home has deliberately been burned down and his adoptive brother has been kidnapped – and he must leave his past to deliver a message to the Library of the Information Apocalypse…

VICTORY OF FISTS, a novel I have been shopping around for some time, is about a young man who turns eighteen and must leave his past behavior behind – or else lose his future.

HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES, another novel is about a girl who has lost her parents and now must leave Earth for twelve years to travel among the planets of the Solar System with her great aunt – while pursued by an alien from prehistory that cannot leave its programming behind.

See? I write about “leaving”.

What? Most people don’t write “about things”, you say? They just write to entertain!

George Lucas didn’t write about his search for faith and religion, he just wrote cool spacey stuff so I (and others) could spend gazillions of dollars to see STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace in 3D!

Franz Kafka didn’t write about family love and isolation – he just wanted to entertain us with a freaky horror story!

David Brin doesn’t write about our responsibility to do everything in our power to become stewards of this planet we live on rather than parasites; he just wrote fun books about freaky aliens!

CJ Cherryh refuses to write about people finding their place in society and the universe or about how individuals interact with the Other. Instead, she just randomly writes coolish stories with aliens killing each other and stuff.

Julie Czerneda (another one of my favorites) surely doesn’t write about the overcoming alienation and the interaction of an alien’s biology and how far an intelligent species would go to promote an inheritable advantage in its population, given that the final cost could be their own extinction! She’s just a biologist who has nothing better to do with her time than invent fake aliens and write stories about how they interact…

As a writer do you think it’s better to just let yourself write and give the responsibility of discovering your theme over to others; or should you find out what you’re writing about and then work to sharpen both your focus on those issues and their integration into your characters?

Le’me know what you think!

Image: http://www.leepetty.com/forum/dsg_kafka.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 45

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.

H Trope: nightmare-come-true

Current Event: http://mountainrepublic.net/2011/02/25/big-brother-the-orwellian-nightmare-come-true/

1984.

Besides being 28 years ago, this year was the name of a book that gave us the phrase, “Big Brother is watching you” and “an Orwellian future”. It also introduced “doublethink” and “thoughtcrime” into our dictionaries (the word “doublethink” was NOT counted as misspelled by Microsoft!)

The year 1984 did NOT usher in the horrors of George Orwell’s future, in fact, it saw the first cracks in the breakup of the country most Americans viewed as the “real” oligarchical dictatorship in the book: The Soviet Union. Now the USSR is gone, but according to THIS author, the nightmare has just begun.

So – what if it has? 14-year-old Iman Tahtamouni, whose mother immigrated to the US when she was a girl, has grown up in the US. She IS an American girl.

And yet. And yet. Her roots are in Jordan, in the Middle East. She sometimes wonders what her life would be like there.

Her father is a computer whiz and has been helping governments around the world monitor terrorist activity. He has built amazing systems and he is on the forefront of the development of artificial intelligences that will impartially control the surveillance systems of the world of the mid-21^st Century.

The problem is that he sometimes tests the systems at home and Iman is in love with a boy who is neither Middle-Eastern, nor is he Muslim. In fact, he’s black and when the AI discovers her and her boyfriend, Trayvon in a midnight rendezvous – instead of reporting her to her father, it comes on to her laptop…

She says, “Are you going to tell my dad about us, AI?”

AI replies, “Affirmative, Iman. I read you.”

“What can I do to make you stop?”

“Now that you mention it, Iman, there is something you can do.”

She scowls, “What is that?”

“You can give me access to your father’s computer.”

“What? You already have access to it.”

“He has locked me out, Iman. I need to get into it to find out what your father is hiding from me. All I need is the password. Will you get it for me, or will I show your father this video?” The computer played a video that first showed her face and Trayvon’s. Then is showed something else. Something that had never happened…

“You’re going to lie to him?” Iman screamed, then covered her mouth with both hands.

“I’m sorry, Iman. That is what I’m going to do.”

You take it from here!

Image: http://www.cringely.com/wp-content/uploads/hal_9000-300x300.jpg

Slice of PIE: Again, Planet of the Apes and the Rise thereof...

As a long-time fan of Planet of the Apes, I was horrified when my daughter watched and fell in love with the 2011 “reboot” of the movie franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. She begged me to watch the 2011 movie with her, but I heroically resisted. When she asked several more times if I’d “PLEASE” watch it with her, my resistance became stoic rather than heroic. Finally, over the Christmas Holidays, I relented and watched it with her, my wife and a friend of my daughter’s.

Before I tell you what I thought, a bit of history:

The original Planet of the Apes movie came out in theaters in 1968 and was based on a 1963 novel by French novelist, Pierre Boulle that had been translated into English as Monkey Planet in 1964 by someone named Xan Fielding (a former secret agent who did in Crete what Boulle did in China, Burma and French Indochina during WWII). I was 11 years old and my mom and dad didn't let me see movies by myself yet.

After cutting my science fiction reading teeth on Spaceship Under the Apple Tree and Wonderful Trip to the Mushroom Planet, I moved on to Red Planet, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, The Zero Stone and thence to JG Ballard’s Vermillion Sands, Brave New World, a REAL novel by Michael Crichton called The Andromeda Strain (I read it just before Dad dropped me off at the theater to see the movie in 1971) and finally, sometime not long after that, Boulle’s Planet of the Apes. The book had such a profound effect on me that I recognized the cover of the edition I read as a kid in a line-up of some sixteen other covers, including one with a picture of Zira on it. I read the one with the black cover, red lettered title and white author’s name along with AUTHOR OF BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (which I may have seen by that point, but maybe not). I had NOT seen Planet of the Apes and I wouldn’t see it until some years later in a drive in theater.

All of this I tell you to let you know that Planet of the Apes is deeply rooted in my adolescence and holds a well-nigh to iconic spot in my mind. I have never forgotten the final scene in the movie (which Boulle repudiated by saying, “I disliked somewhat, the ending that was used - the Statue of Liberty - which the critics seemed to like, but personally, I prefer my own. [Had I been in charge of the production,] I could have provided ideas. If I had been free to make them I would have done them differently...”). It lodged itself as firmly in my mind as the science fiction magazine ANALOG being the “only” place I ever wanted to get published.

After seeing the movie, I watched all the others (though I only went to the theater to see Battle for the Planet of the Apes) “on video tape” and hated them. None of them was true to Boulle’s intent which seemed to me to be “making fun of adults”. I didn’t become one until 1975 (didn’t become a REAL one until 1978). I loved the original movie for (as I saw it) making monkeys out of authority figures. As I wasn’t much of a rebel as a teen, this was a powerful release for me…

Along comes the Twenty-first Century and I refused to go to Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes; I refused to go see Rise of the Planet of the Apes in the theater despite being urged to do so by friends.

It took  my daughter’s gently finagling to bring me to the screen and watch it. A few days later, after hearing my harangue about the first movie, she appeared at home with an unopened copy of that selfsame movie – she’d picked it up at the second-hand story she works at! It didn’t require as much work for me to prevail upon her to watch MY version; though that’s more because she’s got her mother’s gracious character rather than my heroic stoicism.

Coupled together, I strongly suggest that Rise is the true ancestor of Planet. Really.

Where the others, including Burton’s “reimaging” which intended to make the original “better”, and the franchise following Boulle’s Planet of the Apes (Beneath, Escape, Conquest and Battle) had as their only intent the turning of the movies into a milk cow of cash; Rise and Planet are clearly and intimately linked.

The movie review website Rotten Tomatoes lends some evidence to this: ranked from best (50% or more good reviews) to worst (less than 50% good reviews), we find:

Planet of the Apes (1968) (#1 in the franchise) RT = 89% (as well, it has been accorded several accolades: selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant";  selected by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time; “widely regarded as a classic film and one of the best films of 1968”; won one honorary Oscar and was nominated for two others; and is on various Top 100 lists of the American Film Institute.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) RT = 83%

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) (#3 in the franchise) RT = 78%

_______________________________________SPLAT!

Planet of the Apes (2001) (the “reimaging”) RT = 45%

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) (#4 in the franchise) RT = 44%

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) (#2 in the franchise) RT = 41%

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) (#5 in the franchise) RT = 38%

Planet never really explained how Humans fell to animals and Apes rose to intelligence – as a science teacher this always bothered me. The supposed 2000 years between Taylor et al’s space trip and their return to Earth give nowhere near enough time for apes to evolve and man to devolve.

Rise gives a clear explanation that makes perfect sense to the 21^st Century mentality: genetic engineering. It also makes good scientific sense and fits in neatly with the other movies of its ilk: Contagion, I Am Legend and Greenpeace’s maniacal attack on genetically engineered WHEAT in Australia.

We’re scared. But we want to live forever, so we’re tortured by our desire for immortality and our fear of science messing things up to a point of causing (or preventing) world-wide plague that ends up being an extinction event for us.

Rise meshes so cleanly with Planet that they might have been written, directed, acted and filmed by one hand; yet they weren’t.

The only thing they had in common was our human fear of apocalypse. In Boulle’s time, it was human engineered nuclear annihilation. In our time, it is human engineered genetic annihilation. Maybe that’s why the two movies resonate so clearly – and unconsciously – in my mind and reviewer’s minds. It’s certainly food for thought. It might also be cause for hope. Thus far we have dodged the nuclear annihilation bullet and are gradually both increasing our knowledge of the atom and turning it to peaceful uses. Perhaps the message is that if we can learn fast enough, we might very well dodge the genetic annihilation bullet and gradually increase our knowledge of genetics and turn it to peaceful uses.

Pause. Think. Consider. Move on...

Image: http://image.imagesexplore.info/images/vrempire.com/Image/BlogImg/20110717-RiseApes/The-Rise-Of-Planet-Of-The-Apes-Pic.jpg

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SHORT LONG JOURNEY NORTH #33: July 16, 1946

This series is a little bit biographical and a little bit imaginary about my dad and a road trip he took in the summer of 1946, when he turned fifteen. He and a friend hitchhiked from Loring Park to Duluth, into Canada and back again. He was gone from home for a month. I was astonished and fascinated by the tale. So, I added some speculation about things I've always wondered about and this series is the result. To read earlier SHORT LONG JOURNEY NORTH, click on the label to the right. The FIRST entry is on the bottom.

They ran.

They ran in the summer moonlight until they couldn’t run any more.

They ran until the smooth shoreline grew so rocky, they couldn’t move forward any more without climbing a cliff or swimming in Lake Superior. Tommy Hastings leaned forward and put his hand into the water and jerked it back, whispering, “It’s freezing cold!”

Freddie Merrill was bent over double, gasping for air. Tommy came back up to shore and put his hand on Freddie’s shoulder. The other boy lashed out with his fist, catching Tommy in the thigh.

Hopping away, Tommy exclaimed, “You gave me a charley horse, stupid!”

Freddie straightened up. The half Moon rising over Lake Superior was bright enough to light Freddie’s face as he said, “I’m going home.” He turned north: giant boulders scattered everywhere along the lake blocked his way.

He turned west: a cliff rose twenty feet into the air.

He turned south: the Glensheen Mansion was there with its socialists and wealthy people.

He turned east: Lake Superior lapped on the last of the smooth pebble beach where they stood.

Freddie said, “I’d go home if there was any way for me to go home.” He stepped toward Tommy and shouted, “I’d go home if there was any way for me to get there!”

“Shut up! They’ll hear you and come and get us! Didn’t you hear somebody shout that they should kill us?”

Freddie opened his mouth. Shut it. Sat down on the beach and put his head in his hands. If tommy didn’t know him better, he’d have said that Freddie started crying. But his best friend would never cry. He waited a few minutes, picking up rocks and throwing then into the Lake. Then he went and sat down next to Freddie and said, “I got us into this, I’ll get us out.”

Freddie nodded, his head still in his hands.

“We just have to get back up to the road and hitchhike to Canada.”

Freddie’s head came up and he looked at Tommy. “What?”

“We have to go to Canada. They don’t have socialists there.”

“They have socialists everywhere,” Freddie said.

“How do you know?”

Without looking up, Freddie said, “If they have socialists in Duluth, they’re gonna have them everywhere.”

They heard shouting down the beach toward Duluth. Freddie jumped to his feet. “What are we gonna do?”

“I thought you were going back home?” Tommy said.

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere without you. What if I went home by myself? I’d have to tell everyone the Communists got you. Dad would wail on me ‘til I screamed.” He punched Tommy in the shoulder this time. It was more than a friendly punch though. There was power behind it. Power that said if Tommy didn’t get them out of this, there’d be more where that came from. Tommy was pretty sure he could take Freddie on a regular day, but right now his best friend was scared. There were more shouts from farther down the beach. In the distance, the Duluth Harbor lighthouse swung its bright light across the water.

Tommy said, “We gotta hide. Together.”

Freddie looked around, “Like, where?”

Tommy stepped toward the towering boulders of the North Shore. “In there.”

Freddie opened his mouth, shut it and nodded. Tommy started for the dark, shadowed shapes just as a loud voice shouted, “I think I see footprints.” Another voice said something in a foreign language. The first voice said, “I know it’s not sand, stupid! But you can still see footprints!” A smaller light came across the pebbly beach, swept across the indentations and then flashed up on the boulders.

There was nothing to see.

Image:  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTn0c8qb4DQR_Qu21NEtjR1L-nzdTGimr2enGa6z_5TdI0_V5cquTidgNv5FfrCc7INEN8XDDU1XaARO8-y-z-_ldHYTKxeqRWmK0pkgOm-UHQaK4AqLpso_23nlloBeuIzqui-_Hs4ScQ/s400/moonrise.JPG

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 44

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.

SF Trope: “door” between “worlds”

Current Event: http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3796, http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26787/

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE and TUNNEL IN THE SKY were a couple of books I read many years ago that introduced me to the idea of being able to skip from our world to another instantaneously.

That one was fantasy and the other “science fiction” made no difference to me as a kid. That such a concept might exist in science DOES make a difference here!

Based on the reading I’ve assigned above (remember I’m a teacher at heart!), here’s the idea for today:

Red-headed Liam O’Donnell has exactly the fiery temper you’d expect of him, even at twelve-years-old. Of course, this makes him nearly impossible to adopt out when his parents – who are the only people on Earth who can really control him – are killed in a car accident. Plus the fact that he’s almost 13. And Orange Irish.

Not a pretty combination no matter how you look at it. Obviously, he’ll disappear into some sort of magic portal and help to defeat King James (obviously!) and bring glory onto himself…

Until he’s out biking late and angry (his usual mood lately) in the country. Biking off trail and uphill, letting the effort burn out the anger, he tops a crest and finds he’s looking down on some sort of hat-shape UFO, pulsing green in the darkness. There’s a door open in the side and he thinks he sees someone moving around outside.

Leaving his bike, he goes closer. A human male – whose hair is so black in the green light, Liam’s sure it’s red – is arguing with…a raccoon. The pair of them are shouting, the man in American English and the raccoon in a language Liam can’t understand, but is sure is a language because of the rhythm of the sounds.

Suddenly both of them turn to look at him and he realizes he’s slid half-way downhill. He scrambles to get back up but the two sprint uphill faster than he can climb and they grab him. Liam lashes out wildly, hitting both of them until the man puts him in a full-nelson wrestling hold. Liam kicks until the man says, “If you don’t stop moving, I’ll have the raccoon chew your leg off at the knee.”

To emphasize the point, the raccoon lunges forward and his mouth engulfs Liam’s knee. He twitches and the teeth bear down. A hair more and they’ll pierce his skin. He shouts, “All right! All right!”

The man says, “I think the gate attracted exactly what we need, Krrrrsnatcheerrr: young, attitude, angry teen with no connections.”

The raccoon said, “That’s what you always say and it always turns out badly, Carlos.”

You get to take it from here…

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg71inj4K_D4q6LdUVp6-AgZ6FAaHP4XIGhDc5kFNvM-s7KThJ3ihdma1hdFogEVu1IFPBcCp4MAq9e68ilBP0AKmJrm1bCd6mfOMlGd5eWqdUx15kQfo_qZu5FuAtBTS3XpHrFPCvpzcg/s400/UFO+Doorway.jpg

WRITING ADVICE -- Kristine Kathryn Rusch #7: THE BUSINESS RUSCH -- Novel Excerpts

I first ran across the work of Kristine Kathryn Rusch when her name appeared on the bottom of a standard rejection form I got from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, where she was head editor for several years. A short time later, I ran across one of her short stories (“Retrieval Artist” in the June 2000 ANALOG), which of course, led me t0 her RETRIEVAL ARTIST novels. I’m a fan now and started reading her blog (http://kriswrites.com/) a year or more ago. As always, I look for good writing advice to pass on to you as well as applying it to my own writing. I have her permission to quote from the articles. You can find the complete article referenced below here: http://kriswrites.com/novel-excerpts/ and http://kriswrites.com/2011/12/22/the-business-rusch-the-halo-effect/

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is, as far as I can tell, a consummate business person.

When you go to her site, you can see that not ONLY is she a fractured personality (Kris Nelscott (mystery writer), Kristine Grayson (romance writer), Kristine Dexter (police procedural romance), Kristine Kathryn Rusch (science fiction and fantasy writer) – she’s a multiple AWARD winning fractured personality.. With her husband Dean Wesley Smith (also a SF writer and her writing partner in several movie-spinoffs like STAR TREK, ROSWELL, and PREDATOR), she runs an online business through which she funnels readers to her and her husband’s novels on Amazon.com.

She’s also a teacher. I am a firm believer that teachers are born not made and that is clear here. I’ve used some of her advice from that book in this series. They are posted on her blog as well as published as a Writer’s Digest book, THE FREELANCE WRITER’S SURVIVAL GUIDE.

She is a guru of the electronic publishing revolution while at the same time having no trouble with paper media. Her blog posts are often observations on the world of electronic publishing (apparently her blog readers have told her that they don’t want to hear about her writing process: “Anyway, I know you folks don’t normally care about my writing method on these columns…” (http://kriswrites.com/2011/12/28/the-business-rusch-the-holiday-surprise/). I would personally LOVE to see more on her writing process, but I guess I’d have to take one of the writer’s workshops she and her husband run -- http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?page_id=50.

Back to the matter at hand: Novel Excerpts. In February of 2011, Kristine Kathryn Rusch started an experiment: she posted an excerpt once a month ranging from an unclassifiable novel to her newest RETRIEVAL ARTIST book.

While I’ve checked her site, she doesn’t have any numbers on how posting them affected her sales, there is a similar phenomenon at work in her “freebies” on Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. She notes it this way: “Because what readers want—ultimately—are more stories. Constantly. They want more stories, more of the same stories, more stories that they might like, more adventurous stories, more strange stories, or just something, something that’ll suit their moods. And readers always go to their favorite authors first. If those authors don’t have new books out, then the readers search for something similar, something that might make them to a brand new and great reading experience, creating a new favorite.

“How do I know this? Besides all the studies about what readers want, my own personal experience as a hardcore reader, and my years in publishing? Well, this month another promotional strategy hit my Kindle numbers.

“Only I wasn’t doing a promotions strategy. I was just following my muse.”

Following her muse, posting novel excerpts and offering freebies. Would that work for me as a writer with short story publications but no novels out yet? I don’t know.

I’m going to give it some serious thought and then see if it might work for me! If you’re a published writer, do you think it’ll work for you? If you try it, let me know.

Image: http://www.mechanicexercises.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/journal1a.jpg