IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 452

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 (Literature) Trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/HiddenDepths/Literature PLUS https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienInvasion

Current Event: https://www.tor.com/2020/01/02/the-25-most-anticipated-science-fiction-fantasy-books-of-2020/

Wokie Cooper stared at her best friend and said, “That’s the best you can do?”

Abas Bashir’s lips thinned as he looked down at her, “It is not ‘the best I can do’ – because it’s not fake.”

Wokie laughed and slugged his shoulder. Unmoved, he continued glaring down at her. She leaned back and scowled. Finally she said, “So, you think it’s real…”

“I don’t ‘think it’s real’, it’s a recording of the landing of six alien spacecraft in northern Minnesota.”

She shook her head, sighed, and sat down on the lab-stool-at-the-coffee-bar. PC’s – Professor Caffeine’s – was their favorite spot. Fitted out like a cross between a chemistry lab and a morgue with a projection of posters from cheesy and not-so-cheesy scifi movies from the early 21^st and late 20^th Centuries. Currently projecting was an exploding White House from the movie “Independence Day”. She leaned forward, swiped through the 3D projection hovering over his tablet, laying it out as an old-fashioned computer screen, albeit with a .6 meter diagonal. She said, “Look closely and tell me what you see.” She pulled up an image on her own tablet then posted it at a 90 degree angle to to his image. “So, why do your supposed ‘alien invaders’ spaceships look like this?”  https://scifanworld.com/assets/photos/original/64/5e/2c/303-the-invaders-88-1368976996.jpg

“They aren’t space ships,” he said.

Wokis sniffed, “What are they, then?”

Abas shook his head, “With that kind of prejudicial attitude, I might as well not even bother.” He reached for his tablet.

She put her hand over his, trying to sound more sincere than irritated. She succeeded as she said, “All right. I will suspend judgement until you’ve presented your case.”

He pursed his lips, rolled his eyes, and smiled a bit. “Fine. I know exactly how I sound. I know I’ve got every hokey scifi media presentation from “The Man From Planet X” to “Invasion” – you know, the Russian one…”

“You have to see it with the original Russian soundtrack to really get it, though.”

He gave her a dirty look. “I’ve got better things to occupy my mind…”

“What? Making up alien invasion conspiracy th…”

“The ships aren’t space ships. They’re a sort of…do you remember when we went to that STAR TREK marathon and the episode called ‘Discovery’ used something called a ‘pattern enhancer’ for their transporter system?”

She wanted to say that that was ridiculous, but instead, said, “Yeah, I do!”

“They act as enhancers for a sort of gate.”

“You mean, like the TV show STARGATE?”

He gasped, held his breath and let it out slowly. “The Stargate was a portal that would enable rapid transportation to other stargates located cosmic distances away. This is sort of like that. I need to get instrumentation to detect superstrings because a ‘tame’ superstring is the only object in the universe that could generate the energy necessary to…”

“…make the jump from some other planet or galaxy to ours.” She frowned, adding, “How would they be able to target Earth?”

His eyes grew wide…

Names: ♀ American/Liberian; ♂ American/Somalian

References: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/a-brief-history-of-the-alien-invasion-movie/

Image:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg/220px-Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #2: Isaac Asimov “& Me…”

It's been a while since I decided to add something different to my blog rotation. Today I’ll start looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

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 it with 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 above...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! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Without further ado, let’s start with Isaac Asimov…

Obviously, I never met Asimov, though another science teacher presented me with a condolence muffin when he passed away. The friend wasn’t a writer, nor did he even read science fiction, but he knew the importance of Asimov’s work.

In his career, Asimov wrote so much MORE than science fiction: “…wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards…hundreds of short stories…the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels…mysteries and fantasy…popular science books…[books on] chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, history, biblical exegesis, and literary criticism.”

He wrote, “Since February 1941, I have never written a piece of fiction that has not, in one way or another, seen print.”

A search of the www gave me NO clear number of how many short stories he wrote, noting only “hundreds…” So, I went to the wiki site that listed his SS bibliography (see link below) and counted them. While I’m pretty sure I missed some, my final number of everything listed there brought me to 403. That’s in addition to 500 books…and, as a headline noted, “Isaac Asimov published more than 500 books in his lifetime but never suffered from writer's block.”

While he didn’t ever write a writing book, Leibowitz was able to pull the following from Asimov’s writings. Once I wrote these down, I was surprised by how MUCH of this advice I followed.

a) Work on multiple projects at the same time

b) Write whenever you have time – even if you don’t have much of it.

c) Just. Start. Writing.

d) Keep writing – even when you’re not.

e) Enjoy your writing.

f) Cultivate a clear and colloquial style.

g) Never stop learning.

h) Learn from other people’s writing.

As far as “Work on multiple projects at a time” – I’m editing and plan on finishing a novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY and finally have it laid out so that I can work with it. I’ll be editing and submitting one of the most serious stories I’ve ever written, “The Murder of Automotive Technician #47369”; I’ve finished a “Christian” science fiction story that illuminates my new awareness of both the privilege of my race and gender, and the call my faith has for me to give it all up, in fact to be very much prepared to GIVE MY LIFE (not just in an intellectual way, but physically; as in DIE for what I believe. Very few people I know have that kind of commitment to their faith in Christ, even though our example in the Bible is filled with physical sacrifice, from Jesus onward in history) which needs and edit before I send it out with trembling hands; I intend to rewrite a novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS in which the main character is an Ojibwe-white man. My guide for this will be THE ASSASSINATION OF HOLE IN THE DAY, a book of Ojibwe poetry, and Writing the Other (Conversation Pieces) (Volume 8) by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, in which they say, “…one of the students [at a writing workshop] expressed the opinion that it is a mistake to write about people of ethnic backgrounds different from your own because you might get it wrong—horribly, offensively wrong—and so it is better not even to try. This opinion, commonplace among published as well as aspiring writers, struck Nisi as taking the easy way out and spurred her to write an essay addressing the problem of how to write about characters marked by racial and ethnic differences. In the course of writing the essay, however, she realized that similar problems arise when writers try to create characters whose gender, sexual orientation, and age differ significantly from their own.”

I’m in the middle of writing a short story for kids with the tentative title, “Into the Underground with Straw Shoes and Torches!” about the discovery of the Manjanggul Lava Tube on Jeju Island in South Korea. I was there and there’s a major story that has had very little exposure to people not on the island. Again, I want to tell the story from a child’s point of view; a girl’s point of view; a Korean’s point of  view; and the point of view of a Korean girl’s view in 1946…

The potential there for a severe strike-out is HUGE, but I won’t be able to see if I can do it unless I try. I managed to do a reasonable job with several stories I’ve had published there, but the current climate of publishing for both speculative fiction and children’s fiction is to NOT support Shawl and Ward’s concern, in fact, it appears to me that the publishers and writers in these groups would rather first point a finger and cry out, “cultural appropriation by a bofwhig!”

We’ll see. I’m planning on referencing Shawl and Ward in my cover letters and see if that makes any difference! At least I know that I have some things in common with Asimov – hopefully not what he’s currently being panned for (sexism, orientationism, religionism, nuclear powerism)…

Last of all, I will continue to take deeply to heart the most important point listed above: “Never stop learning.”

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov_short_stories_bibliography, https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/advice-for-beating-writers-block-from-an-award-winning-author-of-500-books.html,

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 451

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: ghosts

Current Event: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/31105/cold-spots-glensheen-mansion

http://lh3.ggpht.com/jaykay.jeyanth/SEC6qwqjaRI/AAAAAAAACT4/ssJashvCkWk/s1600/ghost_goo010%5B6%5D.jpg

My daughter and I were talking about camping today. A few days ago, I had scribbled a question a few days ago: “Are there English-type mansions in Minnesota?” Also, she, her husband, and young son are ALSO headed to Duluth soon!

I mentioned that we might someday head north through the city of Duluth because I had frequently passed the Glensheen Mansion on Lake Superior and I related to her its grisly past – which had happened the year I graduated from Golden Valley Lutheran College. I remember the hoopla and the delicious chill it sent down our backs whenever we talked about it.

But what if me and a couple of friends headed north and to Duluth a few days after the news of the double murder – pillow suffocation and a bludgeoning with (shades of CLUE!) a candlestick. Of course, because of the place is swarming with police and detectives (zillions of dollars in inheritance is now up for grabs by relatives – and of COURSE there’s a will, handwritten, from three days before the murders!

Yeah!

This is a prime setting for ghosts peering, lost from the window.

But what if the ghosts of Elisabeth Congdon and her nurse Velma Pietila turned up on the campus of the University of Minnesota, Duluth where me and my friends are staying, sleeping on the floor of some summer school friends?

And what if we were laying in the dark, gazing up at the stars on the Griggs Football Field late at night and suddenly a ghost hovers over the field, reaching out to us as the air around chills. I can see my breath and a voice before us breathes lightly, “It’s not who they think, son. Not who they think.”

A second ghost appears, this one an older woman, though not as young as Elisabeth – and she’s obviously been murdered, her head bashed in; blood still stains her face and dress. She raises one hand, palm to you and softly hisses, “Stop them. Stop them.” The ghosts dance around you in a tighter and tighter circle then disappear…

                                             

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-arXKTiwzTybeiZ-IjR8P9j_aP2vqKXJulRCqqk_e42EoyXriDrQffp-dV_b96wQqLf5Y-M9XYpYkS4Lpz0PJvQcjGfHXS3M8QSPWCq9l9UURqlah0AR2TAlNeS4yX_NR2arOLIZVuY/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg

POSSIBLY (REALLY) IRRITATING ESSAY: STUPEFYING STORIES – WHAT Are They Trying To Do?

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I would jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

What brand is Stupefying Stories? Why have I come repeatedly to Stupefying Stories? Why do I write for Stupefying Stories? Why do I read (some REALLY AWFUL!) slush for Stupefying Stories?

A teensy bit of background.

I met Bruce Bethke, who is the owner, operator, and inventor of the website, some three decades ago because he’d run an ad looking for members to join a writing group that, at the time, was made up of himself, Phillip C. Jennings, and Gerri Balter. I joined and learned a lot; but ultimately I got married and focused, with my bride on building a relationship and a family. My writing fell to the wayside. Several years later, I saw Bruce in 2005 at the Minnesota Science Fiction Convention (MiniCon 40, I think; Terry Pratchett was the GOH (AMAZING speaker!), and Bruce and I reconnected. He was parenting a blog called The Ranting Room and I started following it and eventually writing for it. We corresponded more and rekindled the friendship we’d started in the 80’s; both of us had changed and in the early 2010’s our lives intersected in moments of terror…first Bruce’s wife, and around a year later, my wife received breast cancer diagnoses. Since then, I’ve been involved with Stupefying Stories pretty much since its inception in 2012. I still write for it occasionally, I’ve proofed some of the issues of the magazine, and was in the first one and then “collected” in FIVE STARS (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1938834356/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i9) I continue to work with Bruce’s publishing company, RAMPANT LOON PRESS (https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Store-Rampant-Loon-Press/s?i=digital-text&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cp_30%3ARampant+Loon+Press&qid=1592661624&ref=sr_pg_2) in the hope that they will publish my Young Adult SF series beginning with HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES: Emerald of Earth…

At any rate, in an email, Bruce let me know he’d posted this: http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2020/06/status-update-19-june-2020.html

It’s a loaded essay and guaranteed to draw ire and fire from people who don’t believe he’s correct enough, (though not in the way a LONG DISTANT PAST co-writer Bruce shared a project with ended up doing and sometimes still does). I’d have other comments on his essay, too, but my hide is far too thin to weather such I-n-F…

I wanted to touch on this: “…sharply defining the Stupefying Stories brand, making it clear what we hope to deliver to readers and what exactly our vision of science fiction is. I’ve always been too much of a literary omnivore to do that, but it’s finally time I did.”

I responded to him privately first, and I’m posting this now as an adaptation of my email:

While the stories in Stupefying Stories may deal with serious subjects and dark lives and even have grim endings (the story I know best leaps to mind: “Teaching Women To Fly” (If you’re interested, you can find it in FIVE STARS), and those who critiqued it consistently expected everything to come out “sweet” in the end. I didn't want it to come out sweet because LIFE ain’t sweet. Reflecting though, I realized that while it didn't come out all roses for Celia, her son would be integrated into a subjugated culture of indigenous people and that same culture got a bit of revenge by feeding off the hopes of the “superior” culture...hmmm...) -- it has NEVER taken itself too seriously.

Stupefying Stories and Bruce himself use humor to touch on difficult subjects. HEADCRASH is actually pretty dark. So is his novelization of the movie script of WILD, WILD WEST. I mentioned long ago that the novelization was funnier than the movie, but the theme of the movie (and the original) seemed to be looking at the impact of merging of the life of the old (Civil War) by the new (wildly...um...speculative technology. It was startling for me to realize then that the devices I use in my everyday life might be – nah, WOULD HAVE BEEN considered impossibly speculative (read WITCHCRAFT) in 1920).

In WILD, WILD WEST, the consequences inherent in that merger of stolid, dark past and wild, wild future should have precipitated clear conflict in the movie. But, because it was the result of a six writers independently creating (adding up the Story by/Screenplay by people who are all listed separately) mongrel of a script, it ended up not saying ANYTHING. I seem to recall Bruce saying he wrote the novel based on one of the original scripts…(but I’m retired now, so I’m not sure that’s true…)

The Stupefying Stories brand has appeared to me to intentionally look at serious solutions to serious problems – without taking itself too seriously.

While that is EXTREMELY too subtle for many, I think the people who read Stupefying Stories both as short story collections, in novel form, and on the webpage are looking for that kind of mental issue breaker.

The problem thus far, has been a perceived inconsistency of publication (of course the average consumer and writer is completely uninterested in the people behind the product. For them, life is “gimme, gimme, gimme, NOW!” When instant gratification of every whim isn’t granted, they CAN get all huffy and obnoxious and stomp off to find something “better”...which they won't...because most of what I see in the SF/F takes itself far too seriously.)

Just one example is SFWA. While the paucity of POC has existed oh, since Hugo Gernsback and Isaac Asimov and all the rest, the hue and cry to bring in writers of color has only reached a feverish pitch in the past two years. Prior to that, WOMEN had only barely been accepted into the hallowed halls of science fiction (they made better inroads in fantasy, but still…). Now that being friends and publishers of POC/GLBTQ/GQ is popular and our culture is attempting to make it NOT a crime to be associated with “them” by offering sweeping protection so everyone feels safe talking (some sincerely, some not-sincerely)...

The abrupt shift honestly, makes me feel ill. (Before you judge me, go to my FaceBook page and skim through my Friends…then pack your PNOC pre-judgement back up again). Don’t get me wrong, there were pioneer publishers and editors who, rather than jumping on the current band-surfboard, were trying to swim against the riptide of racist policy, and they cut the current for the rest who are now swimming in their wake. But the surfboard is crowded now with less-than-earnest-trend-followers. My biggest fear is that it will be a "thing" and once it's not trendy anymore, US and state congressfolk, various Departments, and society as a whole will ignore making real change -- the way they ignored the Emancipation Proclamation 157 years ago, the Civil Rights Act 56 years ago, and why nothing changed in Minneapolis, where I live, 53 years ago, and oddly enough, five years ago ago (https://www.startribune.com/north-minneapolis-echoes-of-the-unrest-in-1967/351540861/) -- back when a DFL controlled country and state -- cried out for change and that change STILL didn't happen...

Stupefying Stories has always been about making readers think – not with easy, obvious, symbolism, but really THINK about what a story means…and all the while, Stupefying Stories has never ONCE taken itself too seriously.

Try it out, sit back and mull, and I think you’ll see what I do.           

Resource: http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikIZETm68IfdWQ3BJ8cTXbhdSke3KAoRjYBikm3Anog7zedC0A6mWGcvfZIDQfNfEYMd0iFIGx8Rua5JED7YoKlc0694wBhPooKvNb4bF06NnH5wsDqs2abyPhDe8y41Lc0n3jeOQgpBKm/s1600/ss_banner_newb.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 450

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 Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

F Trope: Magic is Evil, at best relatively neutral. Often The Corruption. There is a good chance it's directly obtained through a Deal with the Devil, powered by Blood Magic or involves Human Sacrifice and Forsaken Children. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkFantasy)

Current Event: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/07/16/former-brazilian-president-practiced-black-magic-ex-wife-says/

Martina Felipe el Bueno scowled at the ancient video tape cassette where it rested under glass that perfectly screened out UV and cosmic rays and lowered the intensity of visible in near vacuum. She said something in Spanish.

“Why don’t we just use English. I can’t even understand your Peruvian accent,” said Álvaro Villa softly.

“Fine,” she said. “The problem remains, whether we say it in Spanish or English – or even Spanglish – the occult rites of a former national leader are there for the viewing. But we can’t see them.”

“Why does it bother you so much?”

“The tape is a century old and preceded the collapse of his government before it accomplished anything.”

“You’re saying if he didn’t do the animal sacrifices, he’d still be in power?”

She laughed, “No, he’d still be dead. I don’t think even Brazil is ready for a zombie president.”

“That’s for sure.” They stood side-by-side, staring at the artifact.

“I got in touch with you because I think we can get the images off this, but I think we need to merge science and magic.”

His breath caught in his chest. He’d heard of it from abuelo. “Oil magic?”

Martina nodded, paused, then said, “The college has a supply.”

“It’s illegal for any of us to even touch it,” Álvaro said. “Even if we touch it, we would be instantly expelled right after we were arrested, tried and sentenced.”

“If we do it physically, I suppose you’d be right.”

“What other way is there to steal oil?”

“Magic,” Martina whispered. “Black magic.” Álvaro barked a laugh and Martina spun to face him, snarling, “What do you know about black magic?”

He held his hands up in surrender and said, “Nothing – as in ‘magic is fine in dumb stories like THE GOLDEN COMPASS, but this is real life’. Abuelo was my favorite person on Earth, and when it came to story-telling, he was the best. But he was old – his generation used ‘it’s magic’ to explain something it didn’t understand.” He shook his head, “First time he saw a cell phone 3D projection when I was talking to my girlfriend one night, he said, ‘esto es la magia negra’.”

“What if I told you a way to use the sacrifice of black gold to create a magical field we would protect the cassette…”

Names: ♀ Peru; ♂ Brazil

Image: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #26 “Forever Thirteen” (Submitted Once Since September 2018, Revised 0 times)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line (Which they don’t do anymore!):

What if someone who’d tried to kill you multiple times then wanted to be your friend?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)

The girl is unique in that she’s three seven years younger than she really is after “skipping rope” with a cosmic string; and the alien robot what caused the skip now wants to be her friend.

Opening Line:

After thirteen years in space, Emerald Marcillon was still thirteen years old.

Onward:

She held her breath and wished it would change.

“What you need to do,” said Zechariah Clarence Brewpub, “is to try and look at it from an adult perspective.”

She glared up at him, then looked through the armored glass and force screen at the

knife-footed LEMUR IIa robot in the shuttle bay of the SOLAR EXPLORER. Finally, she said, “You don’t have to go in there. I do.”

Zech nodded. “We have it almost as bad.”

“What?”

“We have to watch you risk your life to save all of Humanity.” He patted her shoulder.

They’d been the same age once. Even though he was twenty, two meters tall, and a Jump star now, he was kinder than anyone she knew.

“Sorry,” she said, then leaned on him for a second.

He knelt, hugged her, then headed for the airlock. The door closed and sealed with a thud and hiss. Emerald glanced at the vid pickup, acknowledging eight thousand pairs of eyes watching her and Inamma then went through the airlock leading into the shuttle bay.

The robot had taken a Human name even though it was an alien intelligence chip, and probably the sole survivor of an invasion of the Solar system sixty-five million years ago.

Emerald sighed. What was her thirteen years compared to that?

“Your coming here is the most foolish thing you have ever done, Human,” it said.

“Hello to you too, monkey breath. Is that compared to trying to hide from you on an open beach in the Yucatan?”

It paused before saying, “No. That was the most foolish thing you have ever done.”

“What do you want, Inamma? You called me here.”

“Two things.”

Emerald scowled. The crew of SOLAREX had thrown countless resources into communicating with Inamma. It seemed to finally understand that Humans were not the People – saurian aliens evolved on Venus who spread like an ancient plague of locusts. She said, “The artifacts.”

“Of course.”

“No,” she said bluntly.

“Also, ‘of course’,” said Inamma. “The second thing is that I want for us to be friends.”

Emerald stared at the six-legged robot who had taken a hundred Human lives and had tried countless times to take all of them. “You must be kidding.”

“I have no sense of humor. All Humans know this.” Emerald abruptly felt the weight of the crew behind her and the mass of Humans expanding into the Solar system. In a small voice, Inamma said, “You will effectively live forever, Emerald of Earth.” She stared in horror. “When we crossed the threshold of the cosmic string, and you became eleven again, you were changed as much as I. You are now effectively immortal.”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Time seemed to stop again. The cosmos held its breath.

What Was I Trying To Say?

Something about how despite our differences, in the end we may discover we’re more alike than different? I’m actually not even sure. This one vanished into my files – notice that after entering it into a contest, I never sent it anywhere else.

The Rest of the Story:

Part of the reason for THAT is that it’s the climax of a seven book series that started with Emerald’s parents being murdered by this alien amalgam of tech from far beyond Earth and a robot used by NASA to effect repairs on space hardware: “Evolving from Lemur I, Lemur IIa is an extremely capable system that both explores mechanical-design elements and provides an infrastructure for the development of algorithms (such as force control for mobility and manipulation, and adaptive visual feedback).”

I wrote this before the 2020 protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd sixteen miles south of where I live and eight blocks north of Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Book Store and Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Book Store. While I suffered not at all primarily due to my white privilege; the book store was burned to paper ash (they have started a Go Fund Me Page if you are interested: https://www.gofundme.com/f/let-us-help-save-uncle-hugo039s)

What I was trying to say then suddenly achieved new relevancy to my life today. In this fictional world I created, I have a Human teenager and an effectively ageless alien artificial intelligence chip that has taken over a Lemur IIa and has been slaughtering everyone who came into contact with Emerald – because she knows the location of crates of artifacts that the alien believes would allow it to reconstruct itself. It would do that in order to complete its mission – the annihilation of the entire Human population. It wishes to do this because it’s under the mistaken belief that Humans are the descendants of The People who swept out of our Solar system 65,000,000 years ago to invade and conquer the rest of the universe.

Now that AI realizes that Humans are the end result of the destruction of the People by the invasion fleet – and not who IT came to annihilate. We are, after a fashion, “innocent”. Emerald is its connection to Humanity, and now it realizes that, after dragging her over a cosmic string and “de-aging” her, it has also caused the alteration of her DNA to a point that she is not only younger, but doomed to be…(ta da!) “Forever Thirteen”!

With the new understanding, it wants her help to find the artifacts…to…what?

No idea yet, but that’s where I was going with this piece of flash.

End Analysis:

As a synopsis of the series, it’s fine. But as a story in and of itself? Bleh!

Can This Story Be Saved?

The way it is? Nope. It’s not even really a story, though it attempts to be one with a teensy bit of character interaction and a gram or two of conflict. But what do you expect from a piece of flash!?

HOWEVER, there might be something I can do with this…I dunno. But I want to try. I’ll keep you posted!

Reference: https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/systems/system.cfm?System=5

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 449

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: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranshumanAliens

Current Event: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200504114131.htm

Igaluk Abumayaleh-Jawai and Godly Freego have been taken for minor crimes and sentenced to months of indenture aboard the cloudwhale Polyakov.

Both have other plans and reluctantly joining forces and plan an escape on the “longest night of the century”, when normal Night and an eclipse of the star HD 23127 will result in a double night – nearly thirty hours.

A “sparkling” airshow celebration will allow for perfect cover, but the two have to overcome their distaste for each other – Iggie is only mildly modified (though technically not Human by Imperial standards); Freego is so highly modified that Iggie thinks they’re a caricature of a Human, and certainly obvious. Their punishment will be far more severe if they’re captured; but they’re going to have to work out their differences FIRST – among them the deeply ingrained belief that all Humans are by nature superior…and that all Transhumans are by nature superior…it is, in a real way, carrying racism to the stars.

Names: ♀ Inuit;Anagram                     

Image:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg/220px-Ariane5_VA221_liftoff2.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: FRIGHTENINGLY CLOSE ENCOUNTER…[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – “Past Tense” (two parts) (Season 3)]

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, CA in August 2018 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I would jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

Today is June 7, 2020. I wrote this review in February of 2019. While it was relevant THEN, it is even more relevant today, as I sit in my comfortable, suburban home in Minneapolis -- the flash point of awakening civil unrest that has swept around the planet. I post this because my deepest hope is that this time, history will change. THIS time, we will embark on a future that might possibly resemble in some way, the future the original series of STAR TREK shows. I did not march; but that does NOT mean I don't care. I need to do what fits my personality. I need to do something that I can do effectively that might lead to systemic changes in our society. Until then, read and if you like STAR TREK, watch these two episodes.

My wife and I just finished watching the two part episode and to say that it scared the bejeezis out of me would be to phrase it mildly.

From Wikipedia: “[In Past Tense (part 1 and 2] The crew of the Defiant is thrown back in time to 2024 on Earth. The United States of America has attempted to solve the problem of homelessness by erecting ‘Sanctuary Districts’ where unemployed and/or mentally ill persons are placed in makeshift ghettos.”

Written in 1994 some time, it includes the use of Internet podcasting (which didn’t really catch on until 2004) as well as the eerily prescient idea of “Sanctuary Districts” (https://americasvoice.org/blog/what-is-a-sanctuary-city/).

Even in the 90s, it was a real suggestion “…an article in the Los Angeles Times described a proposal by the Mayor [Richard J. Riordan (R)] that the homeless people of that city could be moved to fenced-in areas so as to contain them, in an effort to ‘make downtown Los Angeles friendlier to business.’…” to put aside part of downtown Los Angeles as a haven, nice word, a haven for the homeless.’…‘That was what [our fictional] Sanctuary Districts were, places where the homeless could just be so no-one had to see them, and literally there it was in the newspaper. We were a little freaked out.’” (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_I_(episode))

But it never happened, and the episode was written thirty years before the fictional Bell Riots took place in San Francisco’s Sanctuary District A. This social shift is part of the original Star Trek timeline and, as Captain Sisko notes, “It was a watershed event…” in that it precipitated a reevaluation of how society, in particular, American society treats the mentally ill and homeless.

Only that’s  five years from now, and the Bell Riots took place on October 2, 2024. There are already rumblings every which way that have made this far more possible in OUR future than it could have appeared from Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s 1994. Things are very, very different in 2019.

The theme running through this episode is that the Sanctuary Districts were a total surprise to everyone. From the wealthy “Interweb” magnate, Chris Brynner to the mentally ill Grady who was living in the District; and from Vin, the guard and Lee, the social worker – none of them had any idea how the Districts happened. They just…grew. No blame, no “The Republicans…” or “The Democrats…” or “The Unions…”. The Sanctuary Districts just happened.

For me, this is more frightening than if they had been planned by an evil government (take your pick of who you define as evil, every government has been defined as evil by someone in the country at some time…)

I’ve heard it said that the actor who play’s Captain Sisko is a deep thinker. In the episode, because he knows that the future of (at least) the United States hangs in the balance, he yells at Vin, the guard who keeps coming across as a tough guy, disdainful of and in his mind, superior to the “dims” and the “gimmes” of the District.

As I watched it, it appeared that Avery Brooks was doing more than acting; doing more than just “getting into his part”. Holding a shotgun under Vin’s chin, Brooks-Sisko-Bell shouts, “‘You don't know what any of this is about, do you? You work here, you see these people every day, how they live, and you just don't get it!’”

“‘What do you want me to say? That I feel for them? That they got a bad break? What good would it do?’”

“‘It'd be a start! Now, you get back in that room and you shut up!’”

Vin hangs his head. He knows Bell is right. He knows he’s just given up; and he clearly has no idea how he got to be this way.

Lee confesses to Dr. Bashir that, “‘…[I] processed a woman with a warrant on her for abandoning her child because she couldn’t take care of him and left him with a family she worked for. [I] felt sorry for her and didn’t log her into the system which would have alerted the police, instead [I let] her disappear into the Sanctuary. [My] supervisor almost fired [me] when the incident was revealed. [I don’t] know what happened to the woman but [I] think about her all the time.’ Bashir explains that it's not her fault the way things are.” But she clearly has given up on the system.

If you haven’t watched this episode in a while, take the time to do so.

Then do something. I guess it really doesn’t matter WHAT you do. As

Congress, no matter the stripe, isn’t interested in doing anything for the “unwashed masses”; nothing substantial that is purely beneficial for the majority of Americans and has nothing to do with personal profit or gain; that’s all about making life better for most of us. Like lowering health care costs and forcing pharmaceutical companies to just charge us 20% over cost for all drugs of any kind – from aspirin to Glybera (“…first approved in October 2012 for familial lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD), a rare genetic disorder that disrupts the normal breakdown of fats in the body…[the] drug was never approved in the US, but would have cost more than $1.2 million per year. It will not be marketed any further in Europe by drug maker uniQure as it has become evident that it will be a commercial failure.” https://www.health24.com/Medical/Meds-and-you/News/7-of-the-most-expensive-treatments-in-the-world-20180129)

As Brooks-Sisko-Bell notes, “It'd be a start!”     

Image: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FDS9_TerokNor&psig=AOvVaw11s7oOxk31foZjFEQP_CyG&ust=1704898275135000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCNitoJnH0IMDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 448

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: Haunted Castle/Mansion

Current Event: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/31105/cold-spots-glensheen-mansion

“No! Really! I saw the ghost!” said Enzo Solem. His wild hand waving came more from the passion of his French forebears than the stolid formality of his Norwegian. First generation from both sides, he’d been born and raised just north of the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior.

He also had a wild passion for the paranormal.

Weayaya Aguirre sighed. Enzo was her best friend but sometimes he bugged the living daylights out of her. Shaking her head, she said, “Why can’t you just accept that the world is the world and that’s all there is?”

He stared at her incredulously and exclaimed, “You work here, too! How can you say that? You’ve seen the apparitions just like I have!”

Shaking her head, Weayaya – Wee-ah to the rest of the staff at the Glensheen Mansion – said, “I’ve told you a dozen times that I don’t know what you saw that night. I saw some kind of heat shimmer from the furnace.”

“And I’ve told you two dozen times that I talked with Elizabeth Congdon!”

“A woman who’s been dead for half a century?”

“She’s not dead...” he scowled. “Exactly. Her spirit is trapped here because her son suffocated her under a pillow and then banged the night nurse over the head with a candlestick.” Wee-Ah sucked in her lower lip and bit it gently to keep from responding how she wanted to respond. He added, “All I’m asking is that you come with me tonight. It’s the night of June 26...”

“You want to see her ghost, right?”

“Nope.”

Wee-Ah frowned and looked at him. This was not the answer she’d expected. “What?”

“I want to see the ghost of her son. He confessed to her murder and was sent to jail, getting out five years later. His ex-wife, Elizabeth Congdon’s sociopathic adopted daughter never gave him any of the money she inherited from her mother’s murder. He killed himself five years after his release from prison – though I’ve heard people whispering that Congdon’s daughter did him in.”

“So you want to see if the ghost of one of Congdon’s ex-son-in-laws comes back here?”

“Yep. Marjorie died in prison in 2022, five years before the fiftieth anniversary of her adoptive mother’s murder.”

“And you think that that is significant...how?”

“It’s obvious! Marjorie-originally-Congdon is buried in the family mausoleum.” Wee-Ah nodded. That much was true. “It’s now half a century after her mother’s murder by her second ex-husband Roger Caldwell.” Wee-Ah nodded, not even realizing she was encouraging him. He went on excitedly, “So I figure the psychic energy will be so powerful that not only will Roger’s ghost appear, so will Velma’s; her third husband Wally was murdered as well as his ex-wife; plus some old guy she defrauded of all his money in a nursing home in Arizona. His same was also Roger, though his last name was Sammis. Her first husband – with whom she’d had seven children – was Dick LeRoy and he died the same year she did – 2022. So it’s 2027, fifty years after someone murdered Elizabeth Congdon. I would say that Marjorie Congdon LeRoy Caldwell Hagen has some serious psychic reckoning coming.”

Wee-Ah found herself nodding in agreement before she could think things through. That was how she found herself kneeling in the bushes near the Congdon family stone marker in the Forest Hill Cemetery on this dark and stormy night, cold summer rain dribbling down the back of her hastily donned poncho.

Enzo leaned over to her and whispered, “It’s five minutes to midnight…”

Names: ♀ Sioux, Spanish; ♂ French, Norwegian

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-arXKTiwzTybeiZ-IjR8P9j_aP2vqKXJulRCqqk_e42EoyXriDrQffp-dV_b96wQqLf5Y-M9XYpYkS4Lpz0PJvQcjGfHXS3M8QSPWCq9l9UURqlah0AR2TAlNeS4yX_NR2arOLIZVuY/s1600/2212_1025142570.jpg