A Glimpse Into How I Wrote My Christian, Hard Science Fiction Novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY, Planning To Send It Out By Early June!

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, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, Julie Czerneda, and Lisa Cron. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all 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! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

On February 1 in 2009, I started what for several years was an entry on my blog: I wrote a novel in very small parts. It's April 29, 2023 and last weekend on April 22, I finished the final edit. I will enter the corrections starting the second week in May with an eye to sending it out -- now a novel of over 220,000 words -- to a publisher shortly thereafter.

What began as a vague idea, MARTIAN HOLIDAY 1: Paolo -- Robinson City when added to a Roman holiday (a quality of entertainment acquired at the expense of others' suffering, or a spectacle yielding such entertainment (Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary @2009)) and a paragraph 2200 words long, grew into a massive novel...

I finished the Final Chapter last year, condensing and rearranging until the book finally reached THE END...which was another forty pages long...

What started out with a single character in a single domed city on Mars now involves seven main characters (one set of four “modified” clones), plus at least one close friend. Also making an unexpected appearance are Artificial Intelligences (six of them, one for each Dome on Mars plus an extra who coordinates the Federation of Ice Miners, Mechanics, and Technicians…)

The novel is so far beyond what I expected, I am in fact, in awe of what I created. There are four million Humans and Artificial Humans on Mars; there’s an anti-religion called the United Faith in Humanity – an idea out of which grew a Manifesto: “UFiH (spoken, ‘You-fee’ banned Christians, molesters , Jews, rapists, Buddhists, murderers, Muslims, thieves, Hindus, and embezzlers. While it doesn’t say so specifically, an ardent UFiH-er implies that it is ‘of course’ against racists, sexists, or any other kind of ‘-ists. They’ll swear that the intent is to prevent fanaticism and taxing a young civilization – but the honest ones will admit that part of the injunction is against mind or heart, and the other part is against biology.”

Over the past twelve years, the civilization has expanded, technology arose that I’d never considered: sybils, mindbombs, gMod disks and transports, airships, and in addition to the Domes, there suddenly appeared Stations (which became Quianshao, as well as Outposts…

And people! Lately I’ve wondered if my intent was to write an antiracist novel. My Artificial Humans (the slang word is inti) are considered second class citizens and are made to be blue-skinned so they can’t hide from the natural-born Humans (aka utes)…the parallels are obvious and I hope I’ve written them with sensitivity and diversity. I’ve written elsewhere on the blog about my quest to become both a better writer and to not shy away from issues of race and racism: “POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: “It’s a Mistake To Write About People of Different Ethnicities…” (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/possibly-irritating-essay-its-mistake.html). Not only did I teach at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school, we (my wife and I, and at one time two kids and a foster daughter…and various long-term guests…) live in a city that was recently the headline new for both US news programs and on the BBC News headlines: Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, in 2021, the MOST racially diverse city in the state (https://www.homesnacks.com/most-diverse-cities-in-minnesota/). Thinking of race is something that is, here, natural.

At any rate, my Mars, the Mars of the United Faith in Humanity is in crisis. As a result of a concatenation of events – intentional, as I threw together the Book of Esther, the Book of Daniel, the martyrdom of Stephen (as told in Acts chapters 6 and 7 (as well as Acts 8:2, 11:19, and 22:20), and various parts of the life of the Apostle Paul as told in the Pauline Epistles (and yes, I DID go to Bible College (at the time it was known as Golden Valley Lutheran College, which grew out of the old Lutheran Bible Institute).

I’ve been working on it for the past FOURTEEN years, but because I was stressing out, I stopped doing the story as blog entries and set it aside, combining all of the entries into one document. Then I stopped because I had NO idea what to do next. The file sat idle for another two or three years until, about a year ago, I set out to finish it.

Taking the raw story, I colorized everything I’d written about each of the characters. Daniel and his partners, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego became Artificial Humans – DaneelAH (in honor of Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw), HanAH, AzAH, and MishAH because the TRUE names of the four characters in the Book of Daniel were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego – and Ashpenaz, the Chief Official in charge of the captured Hebrews, gave them the Babylonian names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah – hence the names you see above. Oh, I also changed the gender of Azariah and Mishael to women; and Queen Esther became Consort Aster. Then Stephan became Stepan Izmaylova and Paul became Paolo Marcillon.

Paolo’s sections were all red, Aster’s all purple, Stepan’s green, and DaneelAH, HanAH, MishAH, and AzAH all became blue. After identifying all of the sections of each character (or set of characters), I grouped them all together. That was done about a year ago, at the beginning of the summer of 2020.

It was daunting because my plan was to rotate the story through the four storylines, occasionally crossing them, but with the intent of everyone being in the same place at the same time for one final event. But what event would that be? What could possibly bring such disparate characters to the same place at the same time? As the story had evolved, they were scattered across the surface of Mars – Aster was in Opportunity Dome; Paolo in Robinson Dome then Sojourner Dome, and finally Bradbury…then up to Ísgrunnur on the North Dune Sea…Stepan was in Burroughs, and DaneelAH, et al started in Malacandra and ended up everywhere else…I’d never thought far enough ahead.

So, I created a Revolution that Paolo first, then the others were working to turn into a Reformation of Martian society in order to include Humans, Artificial Humans, and Artificial Intelligences as equal partners in the colonization and eventual terraforming of Mars -- as well as the beliefs of the inhabitants as well, ,embraced rather than persecuted. Of course, I had to include the Face on Mars – but not as something woo-woo. It’s really there, though not actually a “face”. It’s something more

You’ll have to read MARTIAN HOLIDAY to find out – if I can sell it! If you have specific questions based on this post, make a comments below. I’ll answer them – directly if they don’t concern the plot; and in a roundabout way if they do!

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWISPDXTrBLdYUIFnmv7QeFZgLpDOEMPyh5LCxQ4Wn_d6PpDSbc7KqvkKKfATb_KXCWKANUnVQpTVnjFdnPyiaAEzhPGLZJxKl5z7BDuicEz-4Hoom7G3tDVXSPI3I3U56603Gyce9Ygq6kyZvJu5D_tRb6vukh2uHJRCRRKlOo6uUuL_wzS09u6rffA/s1200/Mars%20city%20lights%20from%20space%202.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 588

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: Appeal to a pastoral ideal: Much genre fantasy, of all genres, appeals to the pastoral ideal, one reason for the pseudo-medieval settings. Even urban fantasies will quite often depict cities as blots on the landscape, whose denizens are blinded to what really matters by material ephemera. There are some fantasies, however, which either deliberately take the opposite stance or present a more balanced worldview.

Current Event: “The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair, an interactive outdoor event which focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional 16th Century ‘England-like’ fantasy kingdom.”

Svenja Johannson puttered around the edge of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. She crossed her arms over her chest, tossed her platinum blonde hair and said, “I was hoping for a bit more authenticity.

Matias Gallagher, strawberry blonde hair curled like a swim cap over his head, shook his head and said, “Then you should have tried out for ‘Castle Life’.”

She snorted – a sound worthy of a horse, Matias thought – “That’s just as fake.”

He scowled at her and said, “Just because you Germans have all kinds of castles...”

“Not ‘all kinds of castles’ – Wartburg Castle. That is the only castle.”

He shook his head and said, “Speaking of Martin Luther, what makes you think you’d even like the real Renaissance?”

“Are you kidding? My ancestors lived then, there was no pollution, no noise, and definitely no people!”

“What’s wrong with people?” Matias asked as a pair of teenaged boys in basketball shorts, wearing high-topped basketball shoes and suggestive slogans, walked past them using an F-bomb every other word. They looked at him and Svenja. One flipped Matias the bird, the other asked Svenja if she wanted to engage in a sexual act. After Svenja fired a crude rejoinder back at him and Matias leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, flashing both his six-pack and expanding his pecs, the other boy waved him away. The two of them faded into the mob of 21st Century Minnesotans stuffing their faces the way they did at the State Fair and pretending they were in the 16th Century. Svenja glared at Matias.

Matias sighed, “Point.” He paused and said, “Let’s just enjoy the RenFest for what it is.”

Svenja scowled as a parade of knights in armor entered the Festival grounds, the earth trembling under the pounding hooves. The steel plate, gold trim, and silver filigree flashed in the brilliant afternoon light. There was a coolness in the air, a tiny bite of autumn hinting at the winter not far away. There seemed to be hundreds of knights prancing by. “There are so many...” she said.

“What?” Matias shouted. “I can’t hear you!”

“There are so many knights! Where did they come from?” The sun abruptly dipped behind a cloud. There was a flash of light and clap of thunder, yet when Matias pressed his hands over his ears, it seemed that only he and Svenja did so. Others around them seemed oblivious to the darkness and cold. “What’s happening, Matias?” she shouted.

“I don’t know...”

An instant later, the sun came out again. Matias blinked in surprise and Svenja stepped closer to him, grabbing his arm, long fingernails digging into his muscle. The first thing he noticed was the stench of open sewer and the legless man sitting on the ground in front of them...

Names: ♀ German, Swedish; ♂ Norwegian, Irish
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 27: I Made A REALLY Weird Sapient Alien…What Do YOU Think?

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...

I’ll be expanding on Creating Alien Aliens Part 15 – you can read it here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2022/05/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html

I’m going to assume that if you want to follow along with my process, you’ll read that first – I did before I tried this. I also at least SKIMMED the links I found, too. The most important point in this exercise is this: “The biggest difference between Humans and Sapient Jellyfish is that one Jellyfish is an entire world. The parts of the Jellyfish ARE NEVER ALONE! They are always together; always experiencing each other. Would they even understand the IDEA of the alien? I think Humans get it because anyone outside of us is an alien. You don’t know what I’m thinking; I don’t know what you’re thinking. And even with my very dearest friend, my wife…I truly have no idea what she is thinking.”

“An Intelligent Jellyfish would never be alone because it would be aware of all of its parts…”

So…The boat pulls alongside the spiral, careful not to keep the motor going. I’m trying to make first contact with something that I’ve never even seriously considered being sapient and chopping it into little bits wouldn’t be a particularly effective opening contact. I look down into the water, then in a suit, I slip in. No tech to start with, no wetsuit, just a mask, snorkel, and flippers, I recall an observation from the article: “This gelatinous, stringy siphonophore is composed of millions of tiny cloned organisms called zooids. Many of the smaller components are equipped with lethal stinging cells that stun and kill the bizarre animal's intended prey. Those specialized organisms connect into a coiled string that cooperate together as a team.” And then, “Witnessed in a saucer-shaped feeding position, the fragile organism floats in the fathomless depths searching for food like some otherworldly phantom. It’s made of millions of interconnected clones. There are about a dozen different jobs a clone can do in the colony, & each clone is specialized to a particular task. THIS animal is massive. AND not just massive, the colony is exhibiting a stunning behavior: it’s hunting.”

According to research and a dab of speculation, we know that the Siphonophoroid would have zooids that are either polyps (stick to things) or medusae (move around like tiny jellyfish – or as a groups, they would amplify what an individual would do; nectophores assist in the propulsion and movement in water and can coordinate the swimming of colonies or work in conjunction with reproductive structures in order to provide propulsion during colony detachment. Others zooids like bracts protect the colony and maintain neutral buoyancy; gastrozooids are polyps that assist in feeding; palpons regulate the circulation of gastrovascular fluids; pneumatophores are gas-filled floats that help the colonies maintain their orientation in water and assist with flotation and in some, function to sense pressure changes and regulate chemotaxis in a direction corresponding to a gradient of increasing or decreasing concentration of a particular substance.

Lemme abbreviate that: they can stick to stuff or move; coordinate movement of different parts of the organism; detach parts of the colony; protect the colony; eat; circulate what was eaten; stay in a particular orientation; sense pressure changes and concentrations of chemicals in the water.

Once in the water, the Siphonophoroid…ugh! Let’s call them Sipho – because the sapient isn’t a creature like us. It’s a colony. If it does something, maybe it has to agree to do something. I sort-of understand that – I only have a limited number of parts of me that can act independently. I’m sure you can think of some, but I’m going with my heart – not doing anything exciting, it beats nice and steady. When I see a Blue or Bull or Hammerhead or Great White, but heart uncontrollably begins to beat faster! Theoretically, Sipho can ALL act independently.

So why doesn’t it? Why does this alien creature choose to stick together when any single part of it can take a vacation and no one would care? One advantage: so OTHER predators won’t eat it. Together, they make a rather intimidating creature – it certainly weirds me out, there swimming inside a huge coil of literally trillions of organisms!

I think I have enough to begin to “think like an alien”. This is first contact, so what does the sapient Sipho think?

There is unexpected movement near Us. Not the smooth movement of the usual creatures of our world – the sleek rush of a shark, not interested in anything like us; though the electrical activity of its neuron clusters are minor and mostly organized along simple response to environmental stimulation. The longer tendrils that might mean longer thoughts are not present.”

Even the larger Swimmers, while their electrical activity is long, it feels…slow. Content. Stay too long in their breeding waters, and We fall asleep! When we drift down where the pressure flattens us and there is no sense whatever of the shortened stimulation of the electromagnetic spectrum that amuses us. But we only look at the Deeps to see its differences. We bathe in the glory of the closeness of the light above the water.

The Unexpected startles the parts of us nearest and a highly coordinated pulse of EM races from one end of us to the other. The impulses of the Unexpected are long indeed – though not because it is long as we are. It is COILED impulse, as if the fizzing we speak with from one end to the other instead spins frantically in a very small space. It contemplates as we do, yet its thoughts are frantic; as if fearful.

The colony mostly decides to investigate. As we close the colony around the Unexpected, we form a tube, not touching it, but around it. We can now taste it – many tastes are the same, but some? Some are both unknown and startling. It is more solid than we are as well; we subject ourselves to the worldwide currents, drifting sometimes even into the near-freezing waters where the EM waves grow long; lazy; and the fluids must concentrate in us to avoid freezing solid. But the Unexpected is…entirely alien; like nothing…

Pause, some of the colony are clustering. Shortly we know that the Unexpected isn’t Unknown! Some have felt and tasted something like this. The Unexpected moves like we do, but…it is not like us. One part of it remains above the world, in the Above where we go to die; but it plunges into the water, and it’s as if the water around it lights up!

The part now in the water fizzes like the water in the highest storm or the deadliest struggle between the largest of the water’s inhabitants. It is stunning in the intensity of the fizzing. It nearly matches ours when we coil tightly to explore new parts of the world…

THAT is what we are reminded of! Our body, when we draw so close together, one of the sleek swimmers finds it worth their effort to hunt us. Then we must waste the fizzing on protection rather than experiencing. So little time passes and the Unexpected vanishes. There was no warning. It didn’t not swim quickly like the sleek ones. It is gone, as if only a dream. We decide to sacrifice a group of chemical tasters and move the memories of the Unexpected to one place.

Perhaps we will taste them again; feel their fizzing clusters again? Is it truly a “they” as we are? Might they be somehow less than Us? THAT is an strange thought…we begin to compose the memory.

What kind of Human-Sipho story could I create with this? What kind of conflict? Sipho would be familiar with being prey; Humans are academically familiar with being prey – probably what keeps more people from wilderness camping or swimming with sharks or hunting lions. We’d just as soon not find ourselves on the menu.

I will say it was a…strange experience trying to…feel alien…Later…

My alien: https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/styles/blog-post-embedded--tablet/public/2020/04/creature.jpg
Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae (basic background on the lifeforms and their characteristics); https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/deep-sea-predator-millions-clones (article is more informative on the Siphonophore discovered a bit over a year ago off the coast of Australia), the larger YouTube on the bottom is a more general survey of the creatures (colony????), the Tweet is just a 30 second clip from the larger video…); https://theconversation.com/it-feels-instantaneous-but-how-long-does-it-really-take-to-think-a-thought-42392 (how fast does a nerve impulse travel?)
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 587

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: “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.”

Names: ♂ Ireland (both); Racoon: Traditional Krrlgrrbitz name
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: CHICON 8 – #3: SCIENCE FICTION and…MURDER MYSTERIES!

Using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on the Social Security and Medicare…I will be using the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. My opinions may bring glad hearts to some, or cause others to wish to stomp me into the muddy ground of Lilydale Park shortly after a long rain…

The murder mystery is a classic plot structure, and has been written into SF settings many times, from classics such as Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit” and Pat Cadigan’s “Tea From An Empty Cup”, to Tade Thompson’s FAR FROM THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN. What are some of our favourite books in this genre? What books put a uniquely SFF twist on the locked room mystery or the unbreakable alibi, and use their setting to write mysteries that couldn’t be written outside the genre?

Mark Painter (m):
Lucy A. Synk:SF/F artist
Rebecca Inch Partridge: SF author
Roberta Rogow: SF/F author, editor
Victor Manibo: SF author

I was the last person to expect that I would love to read mysteries.

As a kid, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and books like that bored me.

I loved Asimov and the other panoply of writers from the end of the 60s through the 1970s. But if you’d asked me if Asimov wrote mysteries, I’d have said, “No. He’s a science fiction writer!”

About six or seven years ago, I stumbled across Craig Johnson, who wrote the novels about sheriff Walt Longmire. I can’t tell you even how that happened, but I fell in love with Longmire – and I’m currently rationing the last few of his novels that I haven’t read!

What caught me? How come I never noticed that Asimov’s novels were mysteries – and I read Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and even have a copy of The Robots of Dawn from the Science Fiction Book Club. But I didn’t READ them as mysteries. I read them as “robot novels”.

I’m going to look at this today!

First, what caught me with Longmire? Why’d I even BOTHER TO READ THE FIRST BOOK? I am no fan of Westerns (REALLY NOT!), and I never really though of myself as a “mystery reader”. However, an old friend of mine LOVED the books and because I respect him, I tried the first one – COLD DISH. I was hooked because first off, Longmire’s not a supremely confident, “just put a gun in my hand and I’ll bring justice to the Old West ‘cause I’m the baddest-assed Lawman in the West!”

He's Human – I mean, he’s Human in the best possible way. Somehow, Craig Johnson managed to write Longmire as a quirky, smart – I mean, the man quotes Shakespeare! – and not entirely sure of himself. He also trusts the dangdest people. Sometimes, when he does, my first impression is that the person isn’t WORTHY of trust.

But, Larson gets that, too. Sometimes Longmire makes mistakes in who he trusts and then there are dire results. Also, Longmire DOESN’T ESCAPE HIS MISTAKES OR COME OUT UNHARMED! Even in movies, characters often make mistakes and other people suffer. Most of the time, it’s Longmire who suffers – though, just like in real life, others pay the price for his mistakes. They also pay the price for his well-night-to-unstoppable sense of justice – his daughter Cady ends up paying one of those times.

In essence though, what is it that attracts me to that kind of story? First off is the mystery – don’t get me wrong, I LOATHE mysteries in real life! I need to know what’s happening and to whom. I don’t mean just like, MURDER mysteries, though I’ve tried my hand at one or two – my first sale to CRICKET Magazine was “Mystery on Space Station Courage” (November 1997). No murder, just some strange sounds that turned out to be from someone who was trapped and might die if Candace can’t figure out and convince others that there WAS a mystery!

Another story where I use elements of mystery and science fiction is “Dinosaur Veterinarian” (ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, November/December 2022). There you have a series of deaths seemingly caused by birds – which hinges on the fact that birds are relatives of the dinosaurs (doubters among you? Just go to the grocery store, and in the ethnic foods section, find a bag of frozen chicken feet! Don’t tell me that those feet DON’T have scales on them!) Anyway, my veterinarian character Javier Quinn Xiong Zaman DVM [aka Doctor Scrabble© (Because in the game, J, Qu, X, and Z are the highest scoring tiles)] has to find out what’s hunting and killing soldiers from both North and South Korea, as well as an entire international group of birdwatchers…

Of course he solves the mysteries.

Recently, I discovered that Isaac Asimov loved writing SF mysteries as well. Despite reading his work for most of my adult life, I didn’t notice that he wrote mysteries until the movie, “I, Robot” hit the silver screen with one of my favorite actors Will Smith, playing detective Spooner. What MOST people don’t know, is that the actual story that the movie is based on was in ASIMOV’S Science Fiction. “Robot Dreams”, while it isn’t ANYTHING LIKE THE MOVIE, had the seed in it. The movie-makers just added a Human cop with a grudge against robots to make the MOVIE…seems more Human, cause, really, would YOU go see a movie about, say, a Wyoming sheriff…who was a ROBOT? I mean, really?

Anyway, I’ve discovered I enjoy mysteries – also like WATCHING them, too, in particular the Hercule Poirot mysteries of Agatha Christie.

But I think I like not only the logical order of mysteries, I like that the logic comes wrapped in fallible Humans…or even fallible robots. STAR TREK: The Next Generation’s Commander Data’s holodeck adventures as Sherlock Holmes are intriguing and I enjoy those as well.

While reading a bit for this article, I stumbled across this: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/its-simply-too-dangerous-to-arm-robots in which it explains how “San Francisco was embroiled in controversy earlier in December of 2022, over a proposal to allow police to deploy robots armed with deadly weapons. After initially greenlighting the technology, the Board of Supervisors reversed course due to widespread public outcry. For the time being, killer robots are banned in San Francisco, but the controversy there has put the issue in the national spotlight. People are increasingly aware that this technology exists and that some police departments want to deploy it.”

In a nutshell, people hated the idea and voted it down. Interesting, eh? Robots that can kill are NOT all right, but Humans who can kill are a-OK and we should be happy to sell them guns…maybe this world ISN’T ready for a robot detective yet. Then again, mostly when we think of a “robot detective”, we’re thinking of an ANDROID detective, a law enforcement officer who is built as an “humaniform” robot. But what about MACHINE detectives that don’t look anything like Humans, but are sapient and trained as police officers…what about them?

I think I might be exploring this subject through stories more in the future!

My New “To Read” List: https://theportalist.com/sci-fi-mystery-books
Program Guide: https://guide.chicon.org/; https://locusmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/chicon-8-twitter.png[GS1]
Image: https://chicon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WebHeader_wtexttopChicago_2x.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 586

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: (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmutation. I think I’m going to mine THIS idea in various ways for a while!) , more specifically covered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld_(1985_film)

Current Event: http://altimatrix.com/2012-and-your-dna (Truth? I can’t imagine that ANY person would actually believe this. Really.)

Let’s focus on this little tidbit: “According to what the dowsing reveals, there will be 6-9 DNA upgrades for these people before our critical juncture in the photon belt. Their ascension will take place at the same time as other people, however they will have more advanced evolutionary changes initially. In the meantime these people’s subtle energy bodies will be exposed to even higher frequencies of consciousness than the average person. This will be possible due to the individual’s higher self, having the option to do this. Once the first 3 DNA upgrades are complete, the connection to the higher self is so much less corroded that the higher self can do this type of work for individual chosen for such a role.”

Snorri Benediktsson and Hofi Flosadóttir are going to college in Bemidji, Minnesota – they’re Icelandic exchange students. He wants to be a radio producer and is going for a mass media degree; she’s a future physicist studying high energy particles that enter Earth’s atmosphere through the North Pole. Late one night, they’re working together in the physics lab, he’s fiddling with making an electronic file and playing with special effects…

Hofi said, “Komdu og líta á þetta!”

He sighed. He hated when she used Icelandic. “We’re in the United States. We need to speak English.”

“Ekki allir hér tala ensku.”

“I know that. My roommate speaks better Spanish than he speaks English,” said Snorri.

“Mine is fluent in Ojibwe, but she speaks English most of the time. She does use her native language when she chants at night,” said Hofi.

“But we’re supposed to be experiencing a different culture.”

“So why are we dating each other? Shouldn’t you be going out with a ravishing latina?”

“And you should be hanging out with some fratboy who only wants you for your body and has no idea you’ve got a brain that’s as sharp as the curves are beautiful.”

Hofi blushed and turned back to the window in the lab that looked north, out over Lake Bemidji and toward the frigid air of the pole. A particle collector floated in the atmosphere some hundred miles north and twenty miles up, the display near the window was connected to the college through a satellite uplink. She pointed at the rippling patterns in the sky. “That’s what I wanted you to look at.”

For a moment, even Snorri couldn’t ignore the display. When he finally worked up the nerve to put his arm around her, she turned away. “All right. This has all been done before. Electrons, ionized gasses and the lot has been done to death.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m going to do something no one has ever done before.”

Scowling, he walked over to her humming machine. A small box, open on the side facing them, emitted an odd, pulsing sound. He said, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to really collect particles from the aurora. I’m using one of the new particle transporters from England to move some of the particles directly from the upper atmosphere to here.”

“Is that safe? I mean, I know I’m not a physics whiz like you, but I do know that high energy particles – like UV light – can burn human skin.”

She shrugged. “Sure. But there are other particles up there. That’s what I’m trying to measure. That’s what I want to find – the other particles up there.” She waited a moment and then said, “Stand back.” She flipped a switch. The box sparked and she fell back, covering her facing a screaming. An intensely pink colored, gaseous substance flowed from the box, coalescing on the floor around where Hofi was writhing on the floor.

Snorri dropped to his knees, hands grabbing her shoulders and coming into contact with the pink, amoeboid gas. For a moment he froze, then the cloud began to crawl up his arms. Both of the Icelanders shivered but otherwise didn’t move.

Instead, their skin began to crawl.

Literally…

Names: ♀,♂ Iceland
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 12: SOLAR SAILS TO THE STARS!!! [Uh…Maybe Just Some Near Earth Asteroids…]To MINE???

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

I remember first reading about solar sails in Poul Anderson’s “Sunjammer” (The cover of the 1964 issue of attributes it to Winston P. Sanders) in THE COLLECTED SHORT WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON (Volume 3, THE SATURN GAME)

What I didn’t know until recently, was that solar sails are a very old idea: “Almost 400 years ago, German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed comet tails being blown by what he thought to be a solar ‘breeze.’ This observation inspired him to suggest that ‘ships and sails proper for heavenly air should be fashioned’ to glide through space.

“Little did Kepler know, the best way to propel a solar sail is not by means of solar wind, but rather by the force of sunlight itself. In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell first demonstrated that sunlight exerts a small amount of pressure as photons bounce off a reflective surface. This kind of pressure is the basis of all modern solar sail designs.”

We hear a lot about using solar sails for unpowered interstellar flight, but there would be a zillion obstacles to overcome there, among them how to “freeze people” for that long; and how would ANY vessel survive that long in interstellar space?

More practically, how about using solar sail powered craft to land and prepare an asteroid for mining. In fact, there might be a lot to recommend this.

SHEER SPECULATION ALERT!!!

What if we dispatched a solar sail package with an artificial intelligence and enough equipment with a 3D printer to begin to assemble an asteroid lander package, built around a lightweight container with everything needed for the first mission.

The printer makes the lander as the sail, controlled by computer – maybe even with help from a shot or two of a high-intensity laser that’s in Earth orbit or on the Moon or orbiting the Moon, heads for the asteroid, giving it the energy to reach and deploy onto the surface of the target asteroid.

Once down, it can begin to disassemble the lander and rebuild it into a digger of some sort; perhaps a drill rig. The drill punctures the surface, pulling up material that a small lab on the lander analyzes, manufacturing extensions to keep drilling until something interesting is discovered. Hopefully, the University of Adeleide, Integrated Mining Consortium (https://www.adelaide.edu.au/integrated-mining-consortium/) could conceivably be involved! This branch of the university is “applying Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), advanced sensing, data analytics and machine learning to improve mining operations, mineral processing and recovery. We are looking at the entire mine value chain from in-place resources to final products. The ultimate aim is to increase the value of complex resources. Complex minerals are those that are increasingly harder to mine or process.”

Initially of course, likely target asteroids can be detected, for example, via a cooperative venture between the Catalina Telescope in Arizona, and the European Space Agency’s Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to follow up on the initial sighting: “[As of December 2022], We have now discovered 30,039 near-Earth asteroids in the Solar System – rocky bodies orbiting the Sun on a path that brings them close to Earth’s orbit. The majority of these were discovered in the last decade, showing how our ability to detect potentially risky asteroids is rapidly improving.”

But need we look at them as “risky” or as an opportunity?

Obviously, we can’t launch a Falcon spacecraft for every asteroid sighting! But what if we created a fleet of cube satellites with steerable solar sails to spend time following AI or ground-plotted intercept courses for likely asteroids?

Once a likely candidate – or even a half-dozen likely candidates! – are located, they can be tagged with a transponder of some sort. When enough likely candidates are identified, a solar-sail-survey (SSS) is plotted and a series of small exploratory probes are dropped. The solar sail delivery vehicle returns to Lagrange or Lunar or even Earth Orbit to be repacked, resupplied, and then launched once again on a tour.

It wouldn’t take long for the area around Earth to be full of prospecting robots who, once they found something interesting might send for a Human to take a look around – or even initiate the mining.

The SAFE idea is that these teeny craft would NOT HAVE THE CAPABILITY of manufacturing rocket engines that could alter an asteroid’s orbit and send it on an apocalyptic collision course with Earth – or the continent of choice. They would be workhorse robots; purely machines with a job to do; using simple technology and not require refueling. This might open up direct investment by countries and people without space-launch ability to become involved with the exploration and exploitation of space. (I can even imagine ARTISTS vying to create reflecting sparkles in the night skies of various countries! Just sayin'!)

THEN, we could send Humans to assist the mining operations as well as set up more systems that would package ore for lofting into the asteroid’s orbit in order to be gathered up and delivered to Orbital processing facilities so that we might see headlines like these on our cellphones: “Successful Closing Joint Venture: ‘NewHeight Asteroid Mining can now move to the forefront of responsible development of Nigerian-sourced critical minerals for the world-wide manufacture of clean energy and clean transportation technologies such as battery storage, wind and solar generation and electric vehicles’; Shanice Johnson-Bode, NHAsteroid chairwoman, president and CEO, said in a statement.”

Our biggest problem would be to violently avoid the attitude that gripped European Colonizers who arrived on the North American continent, noted and catalogued say, bison or white pine forests on the eastern edge of Minnesota with the attitude that: “People thought that the forests of white pines, 200 feet tall and stretching for miles, would last forever. Between 1776 and 1940 2.4 quadrillion board feet of white pine was logged. All of this wood stacked in a city block would stack 400 miles high! By the 1950’s all of the vast forests of white pines had been cut down. The only remaining stands were small pockets in very remote areas such as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.” (https://wildernessclassroom.org/wilderness-library/eastern-white-pine/)

Even the asteroids are a limited resource! I hope (and work toward) a change in attitude for ALL of us!

New Source:
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/31jul_solarsails#:~:text=Almost%20400%20years%20ago%2C%20German,fashioned%22%20to%20glide%20through%20space.; solar sails in fiction:
https://www.tor.com/2019/06/03/light-sails-in-science-and-fiction/comment-page-1/ ;https://www.universetoday.com/153335/lightsail-2-has-been-flying-for-30-months-now-paving-the-way-for-future-solar-sail-missions/
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://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/31jul_solarsails#:~:text=Almost%20400%20years%20ago%2C%20German,fashioned%22%20to%20glide%20through%20space. ;
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 585

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: Conjuring…
Current Event: http://www.spellsofmagic.com/spells/spiritual_spells/conjuring_spells/390/page.html

Jacob Adams scowled, shivering in the cold. He wore black jeans and boots, but all he wore on top was a baseball cap turned backwards and an A-shirt. “All I want is a fire to keep warm! I said the spell, how come it’s not working?” His breath puffed out a white cloud with every word.

Ada Contepomi stood with her fists balled on her hips. She was wearing her light blue parka, mittens and knee-high Mukluks. She said, “What exactly did you expect?”

“Fire! The website said that all I needed to do was, like, imagine the fire then speak the words and I’d have it.”

“So if ‘conjuring fire’ was so easy, don’t you think that everybody and their mother would be doing it right now?” She sniffed. “You should try and find a spell for something useful – like conjuring a tank of gas or a Big Mac with fries and a large, hot peppermint mocha!”

There was a sharp snap that had nothing to do with icicles falling from the roof of Jacob’s house and a ball of fire suddenly flared up, hovering over the snow in the driveway. “Oh, my gosh!” Jacob said, dropping to his chest on the frozen driveway, staring at the flickering ball of flame. He held out his hand then looked up at Ada, “Hey! It’s not hot or anything. It’s no warmer than the air!”

Ada looked disgusted and said, “So even though your magic spell worked – it didn’t make what you wanted it to make?” Shaking her head, she said, “When you’re ready to give up this crazy stunt, come in and we’ll watch Wheel Of Fortune.” She turned and stalked away.

Jacob lay in the driveway, staring at the whirling flame ball. Holding his palm to the flame, he moved his hand slowly closer until he was almost touching it. “Maybe it’s only hot on the surface or something.” He uncurled a finger and reached slowly toward it, ready to jerk it back in case the little flame ball was actually hot.

He didn’t realize what was happening until he noticed that his finger had disappeared up to the knuckle…

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

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #33 “A Quantum Echo At Taconite Harbor” (Submitted 4 Times Since 2020; 1 Revision (3/2023))

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, Lin Oliver. 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!

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, Lin Oliver. 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:

There are Quantum Ghosts, then there are ghost ghosts…"Weird physics" happened in northern Minnesota a long time ago. What if there were echoes of the past in the iron-rich soil of the Iron Range and Gitchigumi?

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

A recluse and her AI salvage boat discover echoes of the past in quantum ghost images of a girl shooting baskets in a long abandoned town on Ojibwe Gichigami 

Opening Line:

“It was a good thing Mary Croft didn’t believe in ghosts.

She and Henry, the AI half of their team, were the only certified AI-Human magnetic dredge operator on the North Shore of Lake Superior at the moment.”

Onward:

“They worked for Great Lakes Recovery: Dredge & Dock, Inc, and this tour, the company had trusted them with a publicity stunt. They’d transferred Henry into the cabin of a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old, completely refurbished ore tugboat named EDNA G. Built just after the end of the Industrial Revolution, the last steam-powered boat was retired in the late 20^th Century. Crewed by Mary and Henry, it was paraded up and down the shoreline of three of the Great Lakes, celebrating the company’s commitment to the continued recovery of the planet, and the amelioration of the climate changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. It was a corporate bonus that her family could trace back to the Deep South and included freed slaves, military genius, and a prominent member of the team that successfully midwifed the birth of the first true Artificial Intelligence.”

OK – so THIS IS HORRIBLE! I went from an intriguing first sentence…into a dull, boring, partly unnecessary monologue! What was I thinking? Granted that I needed background. The reader needs to know where the story’s taking place, but this is what is called an “infodump”.

What if I started the story a little bit earlier? She can maybe be talking to her mom…(which she actually is avoiding until the end)…I could probably shorten the story even more, making it more marketable if she talked to her in the first place…I don’t know. I need to see how that works. It might shorten the story as well as integrate the action better; rather than having her mom make a 350 mile trip from Minneapolis up to the North Shore.

What Was I Trying To Say?

There are things we can’t understand when it comes to quantum mechanics, how it works, and what we can expect are gradually coming into focus, but for most of us – especially those of us who have SOME science background with physics, it’s almost as scary as “ghosts”. And I discovered today, that quantum mechanics has its OWN ghosts: “In the terminology of quantum field theory, a ghost, ghost field, ghost particle, or gauge ghost is an unphysical state in a gauge theory. Ghosts are necessary to keep gauge invariance in theories where the local fields exceed a number of physical degrees of freedom”. That would have been IDEAL to use in the story – as long as I can translate enough of it for me to get the gist of what a “quantum ghost” is…

The Rest of the Story:

Here’s another terrible mistake: “Mary had enjoyed the steady thrum of the ancient engine and the absence of conversation as they cut across Lake Superior to the North Shore.” Using past tense, I’ve (probably earlier even) tossed the reader out of the story. Reading it today, after a long separation from it, this phrase certainly threw me out of the story. How much farther will it throw someone who has no investment in it?

The rest of the story concerns a little reconciliation between Mary and her mom; and the possibility of reconciliation between Mary and an old friend of hers; all of which give it a “Human side”, which doesn’t really provide anything more for the story itself.

In February of 2021, I got this rejection from the editor at F&SF, Sheree Renée Thomas: “I appreciated the mining details in this futuristic tale, but I found it tough to follow your worldbuilding in the exposition, as well as Mary Croft's character development (specifically, what was she and what was she doing, what was her actual relationship to the AI since the intro says they worked together for a decade but the robot introduces himself to her later), and so I'm going to pass on it for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. But I wish you best of luck finding the right home for it, and I hope you'll keep us in mind in the future for your other new stories.”

End Analysis:

I allowed the story to wander and not “tell the story”. While details are fine – see Sheree Thomas above – inane detail is NOT. It didn’t add to the story and (from what I read). Didn’t contribute to the forward momentum of the tale. EVERY WORD HAS TO PULL THE STORY AND THE READER FORWARD! This did – in places – but not enough to sell it. I need to change it so it invites the reader in to experience the world of the story.

I’ve got to be more focused – now that I’ve done a bit of research on quantum “ghosts”, the story makes more sense. I don’t have to do lots of “sciencey stuff” IN the story (my target is ASIMOV’S or ANALOG or F&SF. I hit all of them up before, but the story’s new and different. Maybe they’ll take it this time!

Can This Story Be Saved?

Oh, FOLKS! This plays into another story I’m writing right now…

 With the advent of the AI flap launched by concerns about ChatGPT, this is all everyone in the tech and education world is talking about right now. For some reason, I also never bothered to see if there was such a thing as a quantum ghost particle…

If I can integrate these subjects into the existing story, maybe I can resub this one and stand a better chance of saving it. It’s also helped that I read a semi-recent 30^th Anniversary collection of the best stories from 1977 to 2006. I confess it was enlightening in ways…I’m not sure I LIKE entirely. But enough of the stories stood out to me as exceptional (and I REALLY disliked some of them and my opinion was that they were there for name-draw only…), it was overall a really good read. I can see why most of the stories were award winners. I learned, and once I do a revision, I think I’ll take a submit the story again. So, YES. It can be saved!

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(physics)#:~:text=In%20the%20terminology%20of%20quantum,of%20physical%20degrees%20of%20freedom. , https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65139406 (3/31/23; 10:24 am) ChatGPT banned in Italy over privacy concerns -- 2 hours ago, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-a-first-physicists-glimpse-a-quantum-ghost/ ; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-a-first-physicists-glimpse-a-quantum-ghost/

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(physics)#:~:text=In%20the%20terminology%20of%20quantum,of%20physical%20degrees%20of%20freedom. , https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65139406
(3/31/23; 10:24 am) ChatGPT banned in Italy over privacy concerns -- 2 hours ago
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg