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simulated_knave
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Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in the "simulated_knave" journal:
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12:55 am
[Link] | Schrodinger's Plague is a story I read last week in a fit of delight and glee, only to discover that we weren't reading it until THIS week.
I admit that I cried a little (inside).
That said - Schrodinger's Plague is a beautiful little story, about one slightly crazy scientist and his fellow crazy scientists. One of them, growing sick of humanity's arrogance, chooses to test the theory of Schrodinger's Cat (it's a THEORY. No actual cats have ever been harmed to test this). He does this by simulating the experiment with a virulently infectious disease and using his friends as guinea pigs (why harm a cat when you could harm the entirety of the human population?). He then tells them about it, utterly shattering his objectivity and his academic credibility. For shame. They revoke tenure for that sort of thing.
It also clearly reveals him to be a mad scientist, as monologuing about your plan to destroy the world is one of the first classic symptoms (actually wanting to destroy the world is the first). Mad scientists make any story better (Heathcliff as mad scientist in Wuthering Heights. Discuss.), especially when their plans actually work. As, indeed, his can.
There is absolutely NOTHING which prevents Schrodinger's Plague from being true. If I had the abilities with physics and highly infectious diseases, I could go out and set this charming little experiment up this very second. The opportunity to get paid for his idea may have been all that prevented the writer from doing just that (and people say capitalism has no benefits). His plan could be coming to fruition right now, indeed, could already have done so - and we would never know (well, we might suspect. But never know).
This, of course, propels it cleanly away from speculative-fiction. After all, if absolutely nothing exists to prevent the story from happening, it's not really any more speculative than any other work of fiction. It's almost, dare I say, non-fiction, that most horrible of genres where things like history (and the more interesting romances) lie. Stuff that might happen in the future is a long, dull way from stuff that could have happened right now.
Of course, it still belongs in this anthology. Which is, as the cover boldly tells us (and the editors boldly disagree with, which ought to be the sort of thing which gets your contract voided), the anthology of SCIENCE fiction. Science. Hard, cold, reason, free from artifice, emotion, and the lies we tell ourselves (except that one about the cute lab assistant). With SCIENCE fiction, a beautiful construct of ideas is created, weaving a scintillating web of thought and ingenuity to trap the mind and soul in a whole new world of thought - and dressed right back up again in that same artifice, emotion and lies to pad the word count and thus the paycheck. Authors are but human. But the construct remains, and in the truly great stories, you can see it even as you enjoy the pretty lies for their own beauty (and in the great stories, they will be more beautiful than any other lie you were ever told). The intricate web, and with all the dewdrops glistening, too. It will lure you in, wrap you up, and devour you - and you will never feel the jaws around your neck.
Schrodinger's Plague has no pretty lies. It is strands only, of physics, the scientific method, and biological warfare. There's mass murder, attempted genocide, and horror which could eat out your mind. It's competently written, and the characters convey their worry and fear well. But it is only its idea - there is nothing more to the story than that. No one will grow or change in this story. No one discovers new depths to their soul. This story is all cold and rational science, even in its characters. The editor must have taken out all the artifice and lies, the cheap bastard. That's what happens when you have to pay your writers by the word. It is only an OK story.
But it's great science fiction.
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02:52 pm
[Link] | Gary Gygax is dead.
The day, fittingly enough, is cold, raining, and entirely mundane and bleak. Without wonder or charm. As it should be.
Gary Gygax is dead.
He will be missed.
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09:00 pm
[Link] | The songwriters of childhood are the best ones after all.
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08:59 pm
[Link] | It was just like him. He had to pick
A boat gone from dowdy to derelict
In half a dozen years
Of searching for an owner
She may have lost her heart in the harbour mud,
But she really caught his at the flood;
And he wonders how she knew
That she was waiting for a loner.
Blue Dolphin, built by the Rhuland men,
She's lying on the bottom again
With only him to care
That Bluenose had a sister.
He lost the house and he sold the car.
His wife walked out; so he hit the bars
And hit up every friend
To raise the Blue Dolphin
And even afloat she's a hole in the water where his money goes.
Every dollar goes
And it's driving him crazy.
He pounds his fists white on the dock in the night
And cries, "I'm gonna win!"
And licks the blood away.
And he's gonna raise the Dolphin.
Blue Dolphin's lying like a wounded whale.
She's hungry for a scrap of a sail
To get her underway
Back to salt water.
Now there's a man lying spent in the winter sun.
He wonders what the hell he has done
And who would ever pay
To save his schooner daughter.
For even afloat she's a hole in the water where his money goes.
Every dollar goes
And it's driving him crazy.
He pounds his fists white on the dock in the night
And cries, "I'm gonna win!"
And licks the blood away.
And he's gonna raise the Dolphin
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02:39 am
[Link] | Schrodinger's Plague: Dear god, this is the most awesome of the awesome hard sci-fi. Harder than diamonds, and far better than any of them I've ever seen. Plausible, creepy, and downright brilliant as a concept. I love this story. This is what hard science fiction should be - taking a concept, and making it into an absolutely brilliant story.
Rat: Downright freaky. Though I'm still not exactly sure how the hell he passed for human. This is archetypical cyberpunk - drugs, dystopia, and computerization. Good stuff, though I'm not really sure whether it's great or not.
Learning About Machine Sex: See, this would be a perfectly good story if it weren't totally and completely plausible, as the results every time they hook someone's pleasure centers up to electricity would suggest. As is, its just depressingly realistic. Which in a story about AIs, is impressive.
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12:27 am
[Link] |
Week 6
The Handler: The shy little man inside every big socializer gets out. People are bastards. This may be the most depressing story in the anthology. Personification of psychology works much better here then in the Winter Flies, possibly because it's weird, but only in a comfortable way. This may have something to do with the fact that weird over-sexualized women made of black goop are inherently strange and odd, while the concept of people riding around inside people is something we are at least vaguely familiar with, if only because we all have tried it..
This story takes what every stereotypical science fiction writer wants to be and reveals it for the horror it probably would be. If only any of it seemed implausible. :P It is probably the third best science fiction story I have ever read. I wonder sometimes if it is coincidence that of the three, this and the best are very short.
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard: People get free will again. And immediately become moral (and immoral). And French, which may or may not be related.
Good News From the Vatican: Fashionable plaid cassock. A phrase which I must find some way to use every week for at least the next month.
Making it All the Way Into the Future on Gaxton Falls: Who knows WHY the twist happens? The important thing is that it's good and freaky.
Frozen Journey: A Phillip Dick story that makes sense. Obviously, I, too am living in some half-conscious dream world which cannot possibly exist.
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10:52 pm
[Link] | The Women Men Don't See: Women are secretly conspiring with aliens to become galactic tourists. I knew it.
A Few Things I Know About Whileaway: The idea of a child being irretrievably hidden above the 49th parallel cracks me right up.
One wonders why the world without men, written by a woman, is a paradise, while a story by Cordwainer Smith (professional man) in which a planet has no women, only men, is portrayed as a vicious hellhole with no redeeming features. And what this may say about sexism.
Interlocking Pieces: Oooooooooh...this is good. Short, and excellent. And sad. Medical speculation is an interesting area of sci-fi, which is not often ventured into (without anybody dying of a scientifically created plague, at least).
Out of All Them Bright Stars: ...I have no idea.
Midnight News: Old ladies saving the world through strength of character!
When it Changed: This seems a somewhat more balanced portrayal of Whileaway - the inhabitants are rather less idealized. One likes to think that the men in the story were somewhat stupid.
One must also point out that by Russ' logic, homosexuality (or heterosexuality) is a learned behavior. Judging by the huge and (dare I say) flamboyant outcry when that is implied, I feel obliged to question some of her logical assumptions.
IF she were right on the degree to which behavior and roles are learned, however, she would be entirely correct. Though I do really think the men would be brighter than that. Seriously. The guys in 50s short stories were brighter than that (generally).
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10:40 pm
[Link] |
Fifty-Six Pages in Twelve Lines
Short stories get short blog posts.
High Weir: Contact with Martian civilization drives man loopy in an interesting, psychologically plausible way. Who doesn't love little grey men with cultural monoliths which drive men mad (Mad I tell you! Mad!). Always fun to watch mankind lose his grasp on sanity.
Feather Tigers: The rabbit-people from another world inherit the Earth. And then are scared by their own imaginations. If you don't want a fuzzy little blue bunny with a ginormous blaster, you have no soul. Of course, a talking rocket jet might be fun too.
The Mountain of Sunset, the Mountains of Dawn: Vonda N. MacIntyre demonstrates that my unfamiliarity with her work is criminal. Damn me. Aliens who are alien, but human enough we identify and sympathize and like them. Plus - a generational colony ship! And the loss of a race's culture. And a love which was not meant to be! It's like Gone With the Wind, but shorter. And with a spaceship.
Strange Wine: Can you tell Harlan Ellison used to write Star Trek episodes? (Good episodes, mind). Demonstrates why he gets away with groping women innapropriately - he's a damn good sci-fi writer.
Homelanding: Margaret Atwood dreams of a world where Margaret Atwood is as important as she thinks she is. Reader dies a little inside. Seriously...people LIKE her crap? Much like with me, the ego oozes off the page. They could have left two blank pages at the back for me to scribble on instead, and I'd have had a much better time (and a more original time, at that). This is mediocre at best - it's something which has been done by others, done better, and earlier. And by people who aren't Margaret Atwood, which ought to be a plus in itself.
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12:39 am
[Link] |
The Winter Flies
The Winter Flies annoys me. It does this for a neat little Shrodingeresque set of reasons.
There are two (in my mind) general interpretations for the WInter Flies. Either the Black People (not to be confused with black people) are creations of Gott's mind, or they exist outside it. If A) is the case, then surely to god this is not science fiction. If B) is the case, then surely to god this is some of the worst science fiction I have ever read. Oooooh...the otherworldly alien creatures are warping reality and toying with men's minds! Nobody's ever done THAT before. Certainly not one of Leiber's prime influences, HP Lovecraft...oh, wait.
There are thus two conclusions. This is not science fiction, or Leiber is a bit of a hack and sometimes regressed to writing stuff incredibly derivative of his influences.
And is it just me, or did this remind anyone else of Henrik Ibsen's stuff...
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12:01 pm
[Link] |
The Chrysalids
I have finished the Chrysalids, and am to blog about it for English class. Those of you in my English class foolish enough to read further and then complain about spoilers, well, you were warned.
The Chrysalids is an excellent book. It's timeless, well-written, and has likeable characters.
This does not, however, mean I don't feel there are problems. The obvious one is the ending.
At the end of the Chrysalids, the telepaths of New Zealand show up to save the telepaths of Labrador from violent death at the hands of their friends and family. Firefly totally ripped this off.
Anyway, the point is that the good New Zealanders sail/fly halfway across the world to save super-telepath Petra and the telepaths with her. In order to do so, they wipe out every person in the area. They then say that they'll save the ones who are there, but can't afford to proceed north and get the one remaining telepath from her community, since they don't have enough fuel. They also declaim about how telepaths are the master race, replacing the inferior humans, though the telepaths will no doubt someday be replaced themselves, for such is the natural order of things.
The more I think about this, the more disturbed I am by the New Zealand telepaths' motivations. The whole reason they come north is that Petra is able to contact them on the other side of the world and inform them of the Labrador telepaths' plight. Once they're there, they cheerfully leave one of the other telepaths behind because they don't have enough fuel, and unquestioningly leave one of the lesser telepaths behind to keep her company (they claim that they will make their way to New Zealand on their own). This would seem roughly analagous to leaving two humans behind surrounded by wolves who want to eat them, and instructing them to make their way to New Zealand (from Labrador). Anyone doing that in modern society would have some fairly serious moral questions posed, but everyone blithely accepts this.
In short, the telepaths are rescuing Petra - the other telepaths just get to come along for the ride. They're rescuing Petra because she's useful to them, not out of altruism or concern for others. They want to create a genetically perfect species, just as the Labradorians (Labradorers?) do, they're just going about it in a different way. They see baseline humanity as animals, just like baseline humanity sees them.
Basically, everyone's a racist, speciesist jerk - but the humans of Labrador at least have the decency to be uncomfortable with what they do sometimes.
Wyndham's indictment of discrimination would appear to cut both ways.
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05:29 pm
[Link] | I discovered today that the package of miniatures for which I have been waiting five weeks for has not been shipped because all the relevant companies are out of stock.
I'm getting my money back, but dear God...five weeks? To find out that they're out of stock?
Not to mention the annoyance that the company that ran out of stock MAKES the damn things...
Games Workshop is annoying.
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01:05 am
[Link] |
What Will Be Here
After further thought, I've worked out what to write about here.
Short Fiction (the chance of me actually writing anything is limited, but I might).
Poetry (I promise it will at least rhyme).
Roleplaying game summaries (I'll do my level best to entertain)
My thoughts on activities in which I have lately partaken, amongst them theatre, computer games, movies and books.
My thoughts on life.
My thoughts on my thoughts.
My thoughts on the social problems which plague modern society, and how much better it would all be were I in charge.
Sure, writing two posts about what will be here when you don't actually have any readers is weird. But why the hell not, I ask! Why the hell not?
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08:35 pm
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There must be a beginning to everything
This is my first post on the alternately hated and admired livejournal. Here I shall make sarcastic declamations, vent about modern topics which annoy me, and no doubt offend people. Provided they read me. Perhaps I shall post fiction which scintillates across the soul. Or maybe I'll just endlessly list what I could possibly write. The possibilities are staggering.
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simulated_knave's journal