IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 580

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: Ghosts
Current Event: “To be a ghost in space, I expect you would have to die in space. There is a rumor that just before the Americans landed on the moon, the Soviets had a manned mission crash on the dark side. The cosmonauts died, and no one collected them or their rocket...”

Uiloq Chokim pursed her lips then said, “You know the advertising slogan for the old pre-D movie about some space mining ship that picks up an alien infestation?”

Lachlan Maposa squatted as much as he could in the surface suit to gather up the aluminized shroud. Flotsam and jetsam from the thirty-something annual Jules Verne Medallion Races dribbled down from the “race course” between the International Space Station Museum & Bed & Breakfast and the luxury orbital resort, Kubrick. He grunted as he stood back up and said, “Of course, ‘In space, no one can hear you freak out’.” He moved off in pursuit of another piece of shroud, following a silvery fiber wending its way across the surface.

“No, stupid! It goes ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’. It was for the movie ALIEN. Late last century it was all the rage. Grandpa talks about it all the time.” She looked up to see him disappear around a lunar stone. “Are you listening to me?”

There was a long pause. She frowned. Then Lachlan said, “Good. Scream. Grandpa.”

She sighed. She was definitely thinking about breaking up with him. He wasn’t the worst boyfriend she’d ever had, but he sure wasn’t the brightest bulb in the Dome. Besides, she’d started to think that she was never going to make her fortune up here. Mineral rights were tied up by two dozen conglomerates and a handful of nations – the Moon looked like Antarctica had in Early Twen – so there was no way to get a job if you didn’t work for them. Service jobs were plentiful – clerks, programmers, stockers, teachers, and suitjockeys – but you needed licenses for that, too. It was the license that cost as much as a year’s apartment rent. She heard a gag on her headphones and said, “Lachlan?”

“What? Quit bugging me! I’ve got a good lead on a big strike, but I think I see another light over the horizon. It’s reflecting off the Dome Base.” He was panting. She should make them exercise more often. Especially since she was semi-planning to head back to Earth sometime soon. He suddenly spoke up, “Besides, it was a stupid movie. I zipped it once,” she heard the swish of the snoopy cap against the helmet rim. He continued, “Aliens! There aren’t any aliens in the universe, let alone on a backwater like the Moon.”

“How can you know something like that?” she asked, irritated despite the fact that she agreed with him. “No one can know that!”

“Just like I’m supposed to believe in Lunar ghosts?”

Stung by the mocking tone of his voice, she snapped, “Two cosmonauts died in 1968 – almost a year before Aldrin and Armstrong. Their spirits inhabit the Moon! It’s a well-known fact!” One more nasty word from him, and she would break up with him here and now!

She opened her mouth to tell him just that when he shouted, “What...”

Names: ♀ Greenland, Kazakhstan ; ♂ Tasmania, Botswana
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #22: Eleanor Arnason “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be 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. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. 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...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!

Without further ado, short story observations by Eleanor Arnason – with a few from myself…

While I’ve never met Eleanor Arnason face-to-face, I both live in the same city that she does and I saw her speak at MiniCon 23 in 1988, a science fiction convention held over Easter weekend every year for the past 55 years.

“First off, is that I also love writing short, as does Arneson: “…[I] like the shortness of short fiction, and the fact that—written well—it can have a density and tightness that’s hard to get in a novel. It’s hard to write a flawless novel, (though Jane Austen managed in Pride and Prejudice.) But you can write a close to flawless short story.” She continues this theme elsewhere: “[I]switched over to writing short stories, novelettes and novellas [and] I wrote in series…So was I right to switch to short fiction? Maybe not [but] I really like the novelette and novella lengths. They are long enough to have richness and complexity, but not so long that I get tired of writing.”

I’ve found that more and more often, my SF falls into the “longer short story length” what’s called “novelettes” (7500-19,000 words), and “novellas”(10,000 to 40,000 words). In particular, the novelette. The reason? I’m not sure, but it seems like I need that many words to make my characters live. I’ve managed with short shorts, or flash fiction. I’ve even managed Nanofiction (https://nanoism.net/stories/736/), but it’s most comfortable for me around nine thousand words. MY problem is that I’m not consistent enough to push that on a magazine very often. ANALOG is good with it, but I need something SHORTER to break into ASIMOV’S, F&SF, and CLARKESWORLD. So, that SHOULD be my goal.

What does Arneson write ABOUT? The shorter the story, the more important getting this right is, “A lot of my fiction is about social stereotypes and characters who don’t fit into the roles they are assigned by society…My characters want to be something they can’t be in their society, because of their gender…I give them tolerable lives. There is enough suffering in the world. [Other stories]are about people who get in difficult situations which are often supernatural and struggle to get out of the situations and get on with their lives…[both kinds of stories are about] the struggle to have one’s own life…trying to make a decent life in spite the rules of one’s society and the weight of the past…”

Oddly, I just stumbled across a post I made here in 2021 where I was forced to answer a question a friend of mine asked, “Just what are most passionate about?” That led me to a few themes I find in my writing: I’m passionate about what I spent most of my adult career doing: teaching science; FUN! I usually can’t write “funny” science fiction, but my characters can have a sense of humor; I work to write about equity. I will be the first to admit that I’m a big, old, fat, white guy; inheritor of every privilege known to Humanity. But I typically don’t write from that perspective. Those are things I hope people find in my stories.

In a very recent interview with Lyda Morehouse, Arneson said, “Maybe we need to talk about why one writes…I have always told stories. I told stories to my kid brother before I could read and write. Back then, I think I was motivated simply by my love of stories. Over time, I learned more and more about the techniques of writing, and a lot of fiction I used to enjoy became painful to read, because it was badly written. And I became more and more aware of how difficult writing can be. Not always. Sometimes I write stories that rush out and are a pleasure all the way.”

I’m in a tough position because things I believe about the spiritual world aren’t acceptable to many writers, in particular science fiction writers. As a science teacher for 40 years, I understand that science is all about “proving”. But there are some sciences that have become respectable WITHOUT being able to prove anything – exobiology is one. It’s the study of life that’s not on Earth. The problem there should be obvious. We haven’t FOUND any life off Earth. They’ve solved the problem! They’ve changed the degree to ASTRObiology; they dodge the definition by giving it thus: “[We can’t yet point to the exact time, conditions and mechanisms when organic matter first went from nonliving to living…basic questions remain unanswered about the long-term adaptation of living organisms to other environments. For example, we do not know what the effect will be of living for years on Mars…Astrobiology addresses all these compelling mysteries by embracing the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe…addressing three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Is there life beyond Earth and, if so, how can we detect it? What is the future of life on Earth and in the universe…Politics, science, personalities and serendipity all contributed to the creation and success of what is now called astrobiology as a field of inquiry.”

I’ve read about and written about and even TAUGHT about aliens for decades! I have a huge desire to BELIEVE in life off Earth. But there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE THAT LIFE EXISTS ANYWHERE BUT ON EARTH. Despite Hollywood prattling on about how if we were all there is, it would a terrible waste of space – that’s just aesthetics, not science.

“Science fiction and fantasy have the appeal of strangeness, and of course science and technology are enormously important in science fiction.” In an interview with Lyda Morehouse, on February 20, 2023, Arneson said, “One of the deep defects in science fiction -- you see this with hard science fiction writers all the time -- is that someone will set a story five hundred years in the future, and their science is absolutely the science of the moment. Well, if you go back five hundred years in our culture, that takes you to 1500. You've missed Newton…Science evolves much too rapidly, at least in technological society…The basic premise in that story is that a) aliens are not going to formulate science the same way we do, and b) in two hundred years we're going to have very different science. It's one of these things that drive me crazy about hard SF. These guys take great pride in the fact that their science is absolutely true right now even though their story is set five hundred or a thousand years in the future. I just don't buy it. They're wrong.”

Strong words from a strong woman! I hope I can write science fiction as well as she does someday!

References: https://eleanorarnason.com/2021/11/writing/
https://locusmag.com/2016/09/eleanor-arnason-unfolding/
https://eleanorarnason.com/2018/05/this-website-3/
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/interview-eleanor-arnason/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/interview-eleanor-arnason/
https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/search?q=What+am+I+most+passionate+about – What am I most passionate about?
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 579

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.

Fantasy Trope: Fantasy Noir (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticNoir)
Current Event: http://theirturn.net/former-racehorse-breeder-unmuzzled/

I’m not from around here. In fact, where I’m from, the worlds you ascribe to authors like JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien are pale representations of life in OUR 21st Century…

Even so, we got one thing in common – there are scumbags in both places. My dad is a cop in a place I’ll call Rowkien. He works in the biggest city, the equivalent of your New York or Los Angeles, called Mohrpohrq.

The problem is that I’m NOT supposed to be here and it’s really, really hard for a teenager with a horse’s body and a human chest, arms, and head to hide out until the gate that let him through to here opens again. It’s a good thing I learned how to glamour in Rowkien and for whatever reason, that kind of low-level magic works here, so I can make it appear that I'm a regular horse. The other problem is that what are totally COOL names in Rowkien -- like mine -- are not very...um...powerful here. My name's Hokey Flemm. Yup. Cool in Rowkien. Not so much here.

Keeping up the glamour is hard work and it makes me incredibly hungry. I also like to eat a whole lot more than just oats. We aren’t a vegetarian people in Rowkien. Especially us centaurs. I was losing weight and starting to look pretty scrawny. Worst of all, I couldn’t keep the glamour up for more than a few hours at a time, so I mostly had to let it down when I thought I was alone.

That’s how Waqas Said and me met, which just so happened to be the night both of us almost died...

Names: ♂ Rowkien; ♂ Pakistan
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 10-1: What If We Prepared To Exploit Asteroid NEAR-MISSES?

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I’d felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays. As time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me. For MORE interesting articles on a number of subjects – and to follow my MINING THE ASTEROIDS essays as well as BUILDING ALIEN ALIENS series, plus a few other things by me, including my MG/YA novel HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES, go here: https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/

This week: https://www.kare11.com/article/news/nation-world/asteroid-close-to-earth-near-miss/507-219d2b34-b0a7-42fa-a87a-1a5c00ab6479 , https://today.tamu.edu/2022/09/28/nasas-dart-mission-and-the-future-of-human-space-exploration/

“According to the Chemical and Engineering News organization in 2018, less than one milligram of mined asteroid material has been successfully returned to Earth. However, when you consider that asteroids were discovered in 1801, the first crewed heavier-than-air flight was in 1903, and here in 2022 we are planning on going to the Moon and on to Mars, my faith in human ingenuity informed by science and engineering tells me we will be able to successfully mine asteroids in the next 25 years.” – Patrick Suermann, Dean, Executive Vice President, Provost, School of Architecture at Texas A&M University

“DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) was a NASA space mission (with additional support from the Italian Space Agency), aimed at testing a method of planetary defense, designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid by hitting the asteroid head-on. Launched on 24 November 2021 collided on 26 September 2022. It was considered a success.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Test)

Obviously, mining the asteroids will take planning.
Obviously, it will take money.
Obviously, it will REQUIRE innovation and invention.

But we’ve done it before. Let me put it into perspective:

It’s been 1300 years since Vikings from Eurasia reached Vinland.

Central and South America had advanced civilizations from 3000 BC until the final collapse of the Aztecs in the 1520’s. (https://www.thoughtco.com/top-ancient-american-civilizations-169511)

There were several ascendant Native American civilizations between the Rockies and the East Coast, ranging from the Comanche to the Ojibwe and of, course, the Haudenosaunee (we know them by a rather dry name, the Iroquois, from whom the fledgling United States coopted parts of its Constitution).

So, from 3000 BC to 2000 AD; five thousand years, there were several extant, advanced civilizations on Earth. (There were dozens on the African continent, on the South American continent, and of course, China has had advanced sciences and culture since 1500 BC. There are, of course countless other ancient civilizations.

But, space travel, after its joyous infancy as fireworks invented in China, was an offshoot of Western Civilization ignited as it was by the work in Europe of Goddard and countless others during World War II.

It’s about time the Space Age’s childhood and early adolescence matures. Perhaps, rather than brief explorations of the Moon, Mars, surveys of other planets, and a bit of peeking around the neighborhood, it’s time to move out of Mom and Dad’s place and get down to the serious business of making the Solar System the Home of Humanity.

Launching spacecraft from the depths of Earth’s gravity well is incredibly expensive and a real waste of resources – plus it limits WHO can get into space. Thus far, NASA is the only organization that has landed Humans on the Moon. Fabulous programs in Russia and China ARE aiming to do that, but haven’t yet. The biggest advance in the US is that NASA has competition, primarily from SpaceX…Blue Origin CAN get people up there, but haven’t actually made it “into space” yet. SpaceX sends astronauts, cosmonauts, and guest astronauts from several countries – at the same time excluding Chinese taikonauts…[Editorial Insertion: What were the idiots thinking? “Let’s be rude to China because we’re so fabulous and they’re so stupid they’ll NEVER figure out how to get into space!!! Cause Western Science is SOOOOOOOOO much more advanced! We’ll rule in Space FOR-EVAHHHHHHH! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

We’re screwed and now at odds with a China that has absolutely NO REASON to cooperate with us on deepening our knowledge of living in space and exploring the Solar System. We WILL rue the day we decided to make space an extension of America and Europe. Even India has pulled out of the ISS with the intent of building its OWN space station…

The only way that will happen is if we start to mine the asteroids. To mine the asteroids, we need to start sharing technology and techniques.

And:

Instead of trying to shoot spacecraft from Florida or Baikonur or Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center – we need to land several robotic craft on a near-miss asteroid that will cross Earth’s orbit in a relatively short period. It can assemble a small, habitable station and ALL OF US can send Astro/cosmo/taiko-nauts there and initiate mining operations. Better yet, how about Elon Musk sponsoring a landing on such as asteroid with the makings of a BOTH a robotic and crewed station that can begin experiments on mining. If there’s wealth there, so much the better, but this would be primarily a Test Of Concept. Maybe even use organic garbage crashed there to 3D print bioplastic parts for a habitat? Who would live there? By preference, maybe it could go like this:

“An American, a Russian, a Huaren, and a Bharata landed on an asteroid…”

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 , https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/dangerous-asteroids-comets-that-threaten-earth-can-be-exploited-71660051735227.html, https://spacenews.com/asteroid-mining-startup-astroforge-to-launch-first-missions-this-year-2/ ; https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/astroforge-aims-to-succeed-where-other-asteroid-mining-companies-have-failed/; DART Mission: https://europeanastrofest.com/planetary-science-the-dart-mission/
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 578

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: The Good Guys travel through time to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler
Current Event: “The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected [Hitler] twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his ‘unfitness for painting’.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler)

Johannes Klingle and Shoshanna Barbivai glared at each other across the room. She said, “Why do I have to go with him?”

The technician looked at both of them, then shrugged, “I just run the time machine. I don’t make policy.” He tweaked a control, then turned away to make adjustments to a touchscreen on the wall behind the console.

Johannes said, “Feeling’s mutual, lady.”

She snorted and said, “I’m surprised you’d even talk to me.”

Johannes – Joe – shook his head, “I’m a American Democrat. We’re trained to be inclusivist to the exclusion of all else.”

“An American and a Jew...”

He cut in, “...walked into a bar…”

She cut him back, “I don’t drink, so the rest of the story would go, ‘and she watched as the stupid American teenager got sloshed and pissed away the opportunity to do whatever it was he was supposed to be doing.”

“I’m not a teenager.”

“That only changed last night,” she said.

“Yeah? Well I read your dossier, too. You’re here as a last resort to save the military career of ‘Daddy’s little girl’ – oh, and I wouldn’t toss around the part about Americans getting sloshed. From what I read, apparently you didn’t need a bar to get wasted...”

They were standing face-t0-face when someone in a white lab coat walked into the room, took one look at them, pointed a wand and depressed a button.

Both Johannes and Shoshanna gasped and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. The woman in the lab coat released the button and said, “You’re a matched pair of fools. That’s why you’re here. This is the first in a series of time travel experiments and you’re both under arrest by the governments that shipped you here. Johannes – you’re here because not only did you do a DUI, you ran over a Republican Senator’s daughter. She’s still in ICU and the murder charges are pending. Shoshanna, your father said this will be the last time you embarrass him if you fail. I have in my possession papers that will remove you to,” she glanced down at a tablet computer she held in one hand, “Ravensbrück – if you don’t ‘get your act together’. You also both have a pain enhancing device clamped on to your brain stem. You’ve seen a demonstration of what it can do. While it may not work in the past, no one is entirely sure of that. So we’ll have to see.” She smiled a Reaper’s smile at both and said, “Your mission is to convince the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna to admit Adolf. The Director’s name is Gustav Wessely. You’ll be brother and sister visiting your great-grandfather on his deathbed. Adolf is your mother’s sister’s brother-in-law’s son. He’s been in trouble, but he’s a good kid. A little lazy, but he had problems with father.”

Shoshanna stood up slowly, shook herself and glanced down at Johannes. “Who the hell are you and what am I supposed to do to make that happen? From what history says, Hitler was a mediocre artist. Even I could have painted circles around him.”

He nodded and said, “That is exactly what you are going to do. And Joe there on the floor is going to help you.”

“How’s that?”

“The future possible Führer of all of Germany is deathly afraid of beautiful women. He’d never talk to you. But he loves drinking – especially when other people are paying. Between the two of you, you’re not only going to give him watercolor lessons,” he said looking at Shoshanna. “You,” he pointed at Joe on the floor, “Get up. You look like a fool. You’re going to get him drunk and them teach him how to talk to women.”

“Him?” Shoshanna exclaimed.

“Me?” Johannes exclaimed.

“Yep. The dynamic duo.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Johannes shouted.

The man in the lab coat smiled and said, “My name is Frank Adolph Hitler.”

“Who the hell would name their kid that?” said Shoshanna.

“Famous artists often name their children after themselves. Often times the next generation passes the name of an important ancestor on as well.” He bowed, sweeping on hand dramatically backward then stood up, adding, “I am one such descendant of one such ancestor – in a very, very different timeline than the one you two came from.”

Names: ♀ (Modern) Israeli ; ♂ German/Austrian
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

Slice of PIE: THE SIOUX SPACEMAN (Beware the Horseman of the Stars) (1960) by Andre Norton – A Two Part Review

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…

I’m not certain where the negative reviews came from of Andre (Alice Mary) Norton’s SIOUX SPACEMAN but there have been more than a few as the years have progressed. The ones below are fairly positive:

“Having each member of the trading team come from a different race/ethnicity…not to mention putting Africo-Venusian…in charge of the base, was probably a pretty bold move in 1960…her Chinese character…doesn’t really get the chance to break out of stereotype…Norton also fails to have any women of note; women are mentioned mainly in the context of battle spoils….A lot of authors would have written a book in which Kade would end up as central to the Big Plan; in this book, he’s just a guy who, if he is lucky, might get to be a cog in someone else’s shiny machine.” – James Nicoll (https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/the-cover-is-misleading)

“…Norton thought that Native Americans could be employed in such ventures because their ancestry as nomads only a few generations earlier would enable to them to relate to primitive races on other worlds…This is an idea that, as Norton presents it, strikes me as racist…Yet, I know that some Native Americans remain very much in tune with their ancestral customs and traditions, and there might be some way of capitalizing on that — in a non-racist way. In addition, there was a version of this employed in World War I and World War II — the “code talkers” who used Native American languages in transmitting coded messages.” Patrick T. Reardon (https://patricktreardon.com/book-review-the-sioux-spaceman-by-andre-norton/)

“Norton doesn't give many specifics, but we learn that on Earth, the white Western civilization bombed itself into extinction. When civilization rebuilt itself, the Federation of Tribes emerged as a leader in a world dominated by Native Americans, Africans, Latinos, and the Chinese…And it works. Sort of. For reasons I wasn't clear about, the Styor lords decide to slaughter the horses and murder the human Traders…he's let into a secret: despite the official Policy of overlooking Styor brutality, there is a centuries-long Plan to undermine the Styor empire…Would he like to join and spend his life working for the eventual downfall of the Styor Empire and the freedom for mankind and for all the peoples of the galaxy? Of course he would.” Stranger Than SF (https://strangerthansf.com/reviews/norton-siouxspaceman.html)

Andre Norton was “the first woman inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, among other awards (twice nominated for Hugo awards). She wrote for over 70 years having over 300 titles published. I also found it interesting that like another woman author S. E. Hinton, she was advised to publish under a male’s name to increase her marketability to young boys, the main consumer of fantasy…I found that it was well written, with excellent main character development and well worth my investment of time for an enjoyable read of older works of science fiction…The plot is, well, just a bit juvenile (after all it was written with that reader in mind), but is sufficient to keep the reader engaged.” Jacob at Red Star Reviews (https://redstarreviews.com/2017/05/11/a-word-from-the-father-andre-nortons-the-sioux-spaceman/)

Between Norton, Nourse, Heinlein, Wollheim, Christopher, Asimov, and others; I started my journey into science fiction (actually, I started with SPACESHIP UNDER THE APPLE TREE and THE WONDERFUL FLIGHT TO THE MUSHROOM PLANET, and MISS PICKERLE GOES TO MARS but I’ve already written about those here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2012/11/possibly-irritating-essay-how-science.html and here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2016/09/possibly-irritating-essay-gateway.html.

I fell in love with these writers and I work at pulling their books from the shelves of “withdrawn” books whenever I can, as well as ordering some from online sources.

My question today is “Would these books pull today’s teens into SF?” My unequivocal answer is: “I’m pretty sure it could!” The most recent cover of the book is this one from 1978:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6115/6246120042_254ebb243b_b.jpg

It’s generic and while it was intended to be the fifth book in a series, all of which had similar covers, it doesn’t particularly grab you the way these two do:

https://www.scholastic.com/content5/media/products/28/9780439023528_mres.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/db/The_Maze_Runner_cover.png/220px-The_Maze_Runner_cover.png

So, branding would be necessary.

HOWEVER, the story holds up. I just finished it and to tell you the truth, I think whoever owns the estate could easily find a new author to complete the story with this as first in the series. It’s a fast, powerful read and despite the fact that there were no females in it AT ALL (Human, Styor, or Ikkinni – at least as far as we know of the aliens), there’s no reason to think that all females in the universe are dead or that Norton was embarrassed of being female. (The WITCH WORLD books argue strongly to the contrary). She was writing to “get boys to read”.

In 2016, a Guardian headline read, “[Boys] Read Less – And Skip Pages” (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/22/the-truth-about-boys-and-books-they-read-less-and-skip-pages). The trend began – you guessed it – in the 1960s.

(https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/why-so-many-boys-do-not-read/)

Norton was TRYING to do something about a disturbing trend. I can say that she DID capture me and turned me into a lifetime reader – of science fiction. And she was also trying to do something radical for the time – including NON-white main characters (See above).

Those who insist that this book is a cultural appropriation and that it was offensive that she wrote it might be interested in this story: "A few years ago, I stumbled across a series of interviews and articles that led me to Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward's workbook, Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, authors and workshop leaders. After following various leads, articles, and commentaries by other writers, I reached their “workshop book” WRITING THE OTHER, A Practical Approach. She relates this story introducing the book: 'In 1992, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, “One of our classmates opined that it was a mistake to write about people of different ethnicities: you might get it wrong. Horribly, offensively wrong. Better not to even try.”(WRITING THE OTHER: A Practical Approach, Aqueduct Press, 2005; p 6)

“Amy closed her mouth, and mine dropped open. Luckily, I was seated when my friend made this statement, but the lawn chair must have sagged visibly with the weight of my disbelief. My own classmate, excluding all other ethnic types from her creative universe! I think this sort of misguided caution is the source of a lot of sf’s monochrome futures. It seemed to Ms. Shawl 'to be taking the easy way out.' This led her to write the essay, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere” (Speculations, October 1999; retrieved from: https://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/04/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere/)

I've worked the book twice through now and while I haven't been brave enough to introduce too wildly obvious non-white charters, I'm working on doing that in my YA/MG fiction...

So, for now…later! I’m going to end here now, but I’ll back at this next weekend.

Image: http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/jamesdavisnicoll/Images/_medium/Sioux-

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 25: Does How Aliens SENSE Their World REALLY Make Them Alien: A Thought Experiment With SOUND…

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

All right…I want to start doing some experimenting with creating aliens based on the information in Dr. Robert Freitas, Jr’s book, XENOLOGY (link below). So, first the facts/observations and concept: ACOUSTICAL SENSES: Two Dimensional

“For instance, water striders…Much like the kinesthetic sensors in human bodies which provide continuous positional and velocity data for each limb (called Proprioception), water striders can detect the slightest disturbance traveling across the surface of the water…one species conducts its entire courtship display using complex patterns of modulated surface waves…”

“[some] spiders are known to use surface wave communication by] strumming the webs they weave in specific rhythms and patterns…between mother and offspring…Desert scorpions can also detect compressional and surface waves in sand to locate prey…”

“…the universe inhabited by such creatures [using] two-dimensional waves [would create a world of] ‘persistence messages’. 3-D acoustical waves pass an observer…one time, never to return again…oscillations in 2-D media die away only very slowly from frictional forces. The entire surface space is set in motion by such stimuli, and damping is often very weak. The media continues to ‘wave’ for a long time after[wards]…[it would sound like] they were in an echo chamber. Words would have a peculiar drawn out quality, persisting long after they have been spoken. And since the higher frequencies always travel faster than the lower ones, each repetition of the echo will sound distinctly different. The word will stretch itself thin, the higher pitched treble notes bunching together at the beginning of the sound and the progressively lower bass tones trailing behind.’”

BTW: this concept has already been PERFECTLY explored in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s, winner of the Arthur Clarke Award in 2016 and nominated for a similar award in France and Germany, CHILDREN OF TIME details a millennia-long Human mission to seed Humanity on another world gone horribly wrong that creates a civilization of intelligent “spiders”. If you haven’t done so, read it for a fascinating story – and an explanation of this form of communication.

I’ll play around with this in my own way: say I’m a First Contact specialist, and there is an obviously sapient civilization on a world that is made up. The atmosphere is going to have to be exceptionally dense, so I’m going to postulate that the world is, while NOT a water world, has an atmosphere that Humans would describe as incredibly HUMID. “If the relative humidity is 100 percent (i.e., dewpoint temperature and actual air temperature are the same), this does NOT necessarily mean that precipitation will occur. It simply means that the maximum amount of moisture is in the air at the particular temperature the air is at.”

I’m going to add a denser atmosphere on this world as well. How do my aliens sense vibrational waves in this dense, wet atmosphere? I’m going to give them long bristles – maybe rigid, protective spines surrounded by a “bush” of delicate, sensitive fibers. Do I have to have them be spiders or other creepy-crawly things? Nah, I’m going to make them a bit like large echidna…spiny anteaters. Not small enough to “step on”; large enough to both hold a complex brain somewhere in their bodies…let’s say in the CENTER of the body mass, well-protected by bone, and equidistant from the surface of “spines and bushes” – plus I’m going to raise them off the ground by giving them four longish motivation limbs, jointed so that movement in any direction is easy. They’ll have a “manipulation limb” between each “leg” – so four legs, four arms, a brain in the center…

They’ll need something to see with…above each arm, an eye, roughly equivalent to a Human eye…nah, how about more like a land snail’s eyes (and nose – they typically have two tentacles with eyes, two tentacles below them that “smell”. So the body is ringed with eight eyes and eight “noses”…

I’m also going to give them fur, though not as boring as Human fur. About half of the fur is a sort of extension of the sensory “bush” and can change color somewhat as well as compress and extend. It’s shorter than the spines, the bush, and the eye and snorf-stalks.

OK, there I am on the Home World of the Echidnates – which is what they’ll end up being called in the Human-Alien Contact records for all time…

How do I talk to them? How do I even approach them?

Approach is easy – they see and smell all around them (BTW, I’m excluding predators and disease at this point to keep the thought experiment easier…) They’ll see me as slightly taller than they are; though very weirdly…spindly and incredibly balanced on two legs – they’re smart enough to be able to recognize Human legs as a version of their own legs. Eyes same thing – smart ones will look at us, see the big knob on top and make a serious connection that OUR sensory organs seem to be clustered on a single tentacle – the legs and arms, while two of each seems to be courting a life of constant falling over, are at least recognizable.

Now for sound. I’m going to give the Echidnate Home World an atmosphere that is, while uncomfortably humid for us, breathable, though the O2 level is higher and the CO2 level is lower. There are some nasty fungi and other microorganisms in the air, though it appears that they can’t gain much foothold in Humans. However, the world around us is less…rigid than our own world.

Trees seem to be limited to Ginko-type plants, maybe palms, lots of hardwood. In fact, from what we can see, there’s not much in the way of “wood stuff” around. Structures appear to be stone, though the main construction material appears to be a sort of “land-based” coral. We don’t seem much in the way of metal tools; though stone, the coral, and other “nonmetals” appear to be used as Humans would use metal. We DO know that they have radio communication minimally, but it seems that LASERS are predominant…

I lift up my hand, and I speak a version of a language we’ve picked up from several of their laser coms. My target Echidnate stops and turns so that two pairs of eyes and noses are aimed at me. One leg forward, the other three back, forming a stable-looking tripod. Two side-arms swing forward, and the third, forward arm hangs, slightly coiled straight at me. “We come in peace,” I say, hoping that we’ve parsed out the words correctly. The landing of our own spacecraft was never hindered by the spacecraft we discovered exploring their star system.

The spines-and-bushes on the Echidnate’s back vibrate and my host opens a thin-lipped mouth above the eye and scent stalks and speaks. The sounds are surprisingly high-pitched, more child-like than what I expected. Suddenly understanding that the higher-pitched sounds will facilitate speedier communication than my lower-pitched male voice, I gesture and one of the women on the First Contact team who steps up and repeats our message of greeting…I also wonder if they have four mouths as well. I make a mental note to talk with our xenobiologist – what and how they eat will be another interesting aspect of these new sapient beings.

We recall that, somewhat like Humans, the Echidnate sense their world in a more-or-less single dimension. We also notice that the one we’re trying to contact stands in front of a curved wall of solidly-grown coral colored bright blue. I can hear the fain echo of our voices, as if the Echidnate is standing at the focal point of a parabola…

OK – there you go. Using the information I had and extrapolated, I now have a totally new alien; one I’d never imagined…

Next Time: ACOUSTICAL SENSES: Three Dimensional

Source: http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/13.3.1.htm, http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/13.3.2.htm
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg