Category: My Fiction

Here are my own stories. Science fiction and fantasy mostly but other things may be added too.

Plotter and Pantsers

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Here on the other side of the bright line of demarcation that is the post-2024 election decision I selected outlining the plot of my poor neglected novel “Sniper” as this morning’s project.  Last night was a long planned and greatly enjoyed family party celebrating Princess Sack of Potatoes’ sixth birthday.  It was a good-sized gathering of about thirty people and featured the Princess’s food of choice; multiple versions of pizza.  Now I personally do not believe that something called “mac and cheese” pizza could actually be considered pizza.  It is an abomination in the same league as anything called pizza that contains pineapple.  But I am a tolerant man.  If the children demand mac and cheese pizza then so be it.  I found a giant box that contained something that was garnished with sausage and pepperoni on it and so I was content.  And I even managed to introduce the grandchildren to a small snippet of the classic W.C. Fields movie “It’s a Gift” before it was drowned out by the torrent of talking that erupted when their parents followed us upstairs after the majority of the guests left.  Well, I’ll just have to wait for an opportunity during the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays to screen that cinematic gem for their viewing pleasure.

And because that gathering ended late, I had no time to look around for a theme for last night’s post.  And honestly, I was exhausted.  And if I had tried to post something in that state it would have been stale and derivative and a waste of everybody’s time.  And in this new regimen of mine that is anathema.  I’ll write when I have something I want to say.  And when I don’t, I’ll work on my projects.

And getting back to the theme of this post, my project for today is to review “The Sniper” holistically and identify plot line and character development and quality issues that need to be worked on.  And come up with an outline for the whole story and an outline for the series of stories in this “universe” and then a plan for completing this novel this winter. And then scheduling this work to be finished by some reasonable date.

And this is exciting for me.  It’s an intellectually interesting process that I’ve never tried before.  Up until now I’ve been what’s called a discovery writer or more colloquially a “seat of the pantser” or just a pantser.   This is the opposite of an “outliner” or a plotter.  A discovery writer just sits down and starts writing based on some idea or even just a gestalt of a story and keeps writing and let’s the story write itself without any direction from the author’s conscious mind.  I’ve always done this.  The positive side of this process is that the author’s natural creative instincts are in control and many exciting characters and plot events bubble up.  It is the natural method for producing realistic dialog and emotional insight into the characters.  The negative side is that the story direction is kind of random and you very easily can paint your story into a corner that can only be fixed by a massive re-write which is lethal for story-telling and for the morale of the writer.

And as someone who has run up against this dead-end scenario several times, I have decided to make the effort to do a formal outline and learn the skills it takes to plan my story in a disciplined way so that it won’t fly off the rails at the end and cause me massive mental anguish and confusion.  If I find that working on this outline is interesting, I’ll probably write more about and might even consult some of the sci-fi fans in the audience for their opinions on some of my story choices.

So here I go.

Segueing Into a Brilliant Future

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So, the fireworks are finished and now we go a couple of months until Trump enters the White House.  In the meantime, the Deep State tries to figure out how to destroy his presidency.  And they’ll also try to save the Ukraine misadventure.  Although I can’t see that working.  Without tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and support Ukraine is going to collapse.

But from our point of view there’s really not much to talk about.  Whether the Republicans have a three or a four man lead in the Senate or Mike Johnson has a ten or eleven man lead in the House isn’t all that important.  The fact that Mike Johnson isn’t Paul Ryan is somewhat significant.  But all of the action starts happening in January.  And really, we won’t know anything right away because it will take a bunch of weeks for Trump to get his Cabinet sworn in.

My point is that there’s really not much of substance to say.  Basically, Joe Biden destroyed the country and Kamala Harris was his Vice President.  And on top of that she is a terrible candidate.  So, Americans rejected both of them and hired Donald Trump to fix the country.  Yay, for our side.

So now I have to figure out a new tack for my writing and my on-line existence.  I can’t see the need to document the Trump/Washington war on a day-to-day basis.  Undoubtedly there will be events that will inspire me to write at length.  But a daily journal of that will be excessive.  Instead, I want to spend the majority of my writing time on fiction.  Also, photography is the other focus I want to feature on the site.  And of course I’ll provide reviews of books, movies and music as I find it.

So, let’s see how all this goes.  Probably the difference will be hardly noticeable to the casual reader.  And the extra time for writing will allow me to finish my first book and see how that works out.  I’m of course expecting at least a ten million books sold in the first year and then up from there.  I’ll probably be asked by the Trump administration to become a key advisor to the President on all cultural matters.  I suppose that goes without saying.  But it won’t affect my trademark humility and love for the common man.  My only extravagance will be an exact replica of a Packard Eight constructed almost entirely of tantalum.  Well, maybe I’ll get Camera Girl a Dyson vacuum cleaner too.  She’s been good.

So, the future is upon us and it’s all sunshine and sharkskin suits as far as the eye can see.  We all will march into this bright future thanks to the final humiliation and banishment of Biden and Harris and the ascension to the throne of the once and future king; Donald J. Trump.  Long may he mock our enemies and exaggerate his accomplishments.  Let’s just his (and our) luck holds out long enough to staunch the bleeding of this once great land.  We really could use a break.

Turning the Page

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The countdown continues.  As I write this there are twenty-four days until the election.  From my point of view, I am desperate for this thing to be over.  After November Fifth I hope never to see Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow or any other poisonous talking head for the rest of my natural life.  My intent is to occupy my time with things that can have a positive impact on me and my local world.

Now it may be that from time to time I may have some reason to consider what the two national parties are doing as it impacts me.  That’s only reasonable.  But all of my efforts will be directed toward avoiding the policies of the federal and state governments that negatively impact my life.  I don’t delude myself that I can completely negate these deleterious influences.  But I intend to use whatever resources and logical analysis I can bring to bear to improve the way I and my friends and family live inside this place.

I look at this as a shift from a passive strategy to an active approach.  Instead of stressing over an election that I have absolutely no control over and which may be completely rigged from the get go, I can concentrate on my own actions and how they will impact the things I identify as in some sense controllable.  And that shift from passive to active I find very exciting.  For way too many years I have been fixated on reliving the experience of Ronald Reagan capturing the imagination of the majority of Americans and trying to change the course America was on.  Probably the closest we ever came to that was when George W. Bush was given a mandate in 2004 by the American people.  And he squandered it.  Well, time is growing short.  I can’t wait for the country to return to a consensus.  That may take decades or maybe never happen at all.  For me direct action is the solution.

Of course, my actions will be small, limited in scope and based on my interests and talents.  I intend to spend my time writing.  I think I might be able to produce some entertaining stories.  I want them to reach a sizable audience so I have a lot to learn about marketing and other aspects of book selling.  Some of the things I’ve heard about how you have to write ten novels ahead of time so that you can release them, one a month, in order to trigger the Amazon algorithm that notices such things.  That seems insane.  You have to write a million words before finding out if your story will be seen by anyone.  There’s got to be a better way than that.  But anyway, that’s one of the things I have to find out about.

So, come on November Sixth.  Get here already.  Put an end to polls, debates, pundits, special reports, psychopathic snipers, CNN, MSNBC, 60 Minutes, Joe Biden’s presidency and every other scrap of this long stupid ordeal that has eaten up years of my life but hasn’t improved it one iota.  Let me move on with my life.

Update:

War Pig commented:

I voted yesterday. Early voting in person at the board of elections. A strange process this time. After validating my identity via military ID card, I signed in and watched as a ballot was printed off for me. I don’t like that. I voted and left. Now I can see how easily electronic-counted ballots can be faked. It goes into a reader machine and I have no way of knowing if it is read correctly. I use ink to fill in the bubble beside the candidate. But when read does the machine record my actual vote or is it set up to record the wrong candidate one out of, say, fifty times?

Hmmmm. Since the Clintons are related by marriage to Soros and a relative of Soros owns the company that makes and supplies software for the majority of voting machines, it gives me furiously to wonder.

Photog responds:

Since the debacle of 2020 I plugged into the local electoral process where I lived.  And what has changed surprised me.  Even in New England there has been an upswell of monitoring of such things as voter registration lists and fraud.  Will it make a difference?  Hard to say but there has been some scrutiny.

More Than Meets the Eye – Part 3

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The bank branch of the Farmer’s Credit Union and Loan nearest “Grid 19” was open for business on a Tuesday morning when a convoy of black SUV’s rolled up in front of the building and a phalanx of men in dark suits and sunglasses marched into the building and converged on the manager’s office.  A security guard intercepted them and was shown some very high-powered federal credentials that backed him right down.  The manager was handed paperwork that required him to begin providing access to all of his files, account data and any other damn thing the feds decided they wanted.

At approximately the same time a similar invasion was occurring at the headquarters of that bank.  And the man heading up that raiding party was from the Justice Department and he wasn’t interested in uncovering some scam that the IRS would be adjudicating.  He was interested in a conspiracy.  He demanded and received access to all transactional data for accounts that were deemed to be colluding in a price fixing conspiracy to control commodity prices throughout the United States.

The president of the bank was a mild-mannered fellow who was basically scared out of his wits and agreed to cooperate as thoroughly as humanly possible but he assured the official that he had no idea what they were talking about.  His bank wasn’t a high-powered financial behemoth.  They were strictly small potatoes.  And after a few weeks of digging through the bank’s accounts, transactions and files they found precisely nothing.  All of the payments were between the private individuals that bought and sold the farm products.  The bank had no control over prices or quantities.  There was no commonality between these transactions and the bank other than the money passed in and out of their accounts.

The Deputy Assistant Attorney General who was overseeing the investigation read the report he had received from his flunkies and shook his head.  This was not going to be well-received by his boss.  He now regretted having allowed himself to be convinced that his old Harvard Law School buddy Dex Hastings was onto something big with this price fixing conspiracy.  He called up Hastings, “Hey listen, Dexter, make sure the next time you have a tip on a conspiracy theory just call up Morning Joe instead.  You can’t have price fixing when the individual prices are up and down all over the map.   I can’t waste a million dollars auditing some penny-ante flyover-country bank looking for super-villains.  Some of us have to work for a living.”  After that he felt better.  But then he wondered if Hastings would still invite him to his summer party on Martha’s Vineyard.  After that he felt worse.

Dexter Hastings got off the call from Washington and he was incensed.  His friend in Washington had insulted him, his dashboard had that red flashing light which the CEO would slam him for and he still hadn’t gotten to fire Barry Carver for his insolence.  This was turning into a hell of a week.

Just then he received a text to report to the C-Suite.  Arriving, he saw that the executive board was assembled and Dexter nervously entered the board room and took a seat at the far end of the table.  Eventually the matter under discussion was resolved and the CEO, Jim Hatcher turned to him smiling and said, “Dex, we’ve been discussing your project.  It seems that wheat just isn’t going to recover soon enough for us to put your plan into action.  We’ve decided to reallocate the capital to another venture.  We’ve had an offer from Typhon Industries to buy up your entire portfolio in the Midwest.  We’re going to have to take a bit of a haircut to get him to take the whole lot but we’re just champing at the bit to pick up that Korean Biotech firm with the hair restoration patent.  I’ve heard it’ll be worth a trillion dollars over the life of the patent so how can we resist.  I’m sorry we won’t be able use you anymore but you know how these things go; here today gone tomorrow.  But we’ve got an excellent package set up for you, I hope.  So, buck up.  You’ll surely bounce back from this.  In fact, if you’d like I’ll put in a good word for you with Typhon Industries.  Who’s that fellow, Paul Connors?  I hear he’s a strange duck, but any port in a storm, as they say.  Well, that’s all Dexter.  See you around the Vineyard next summer, maybe.”

Paul Connors was sitting at his desk, looking at what liquidations he could expedite in order to make the land purchase from Bay Holdings.  He would be forced to sell an embarrassing amount of gold and platinum group metals on the international markets.  It would necessarily depress the prices but more problematically it would draw too much attention to commodity holdings that would be difficult to explain.  For these metals hadn’t been purchased they’d been mined.  And having to account for his mineral holdings would raise too many questions that he could not afford to answer.

Just then a deeply encrypted link appeared on his desktop.  Opening it he saw the face of his most valuable operative, Cutter.  The bearded face looked only slightly worried which Connors took as good news.  “What’s the word Cutter?  Will the gestapo be busting down my door this week?”  Cutter shook his chin, “No, not this week.  You lucked out.  That nitwit Hastings sicced his equally stupid friend in the Justice Department on the poor guys in the bank.  And since they know exactly nothing about our operation, that’s exactly what the feds learned.  We dodged another bullet.”

Connors smiled weakly, “How many more will we dodge?”  Cutter looked down, “Better assume that was your last break.  We’ve got to have a plan to deal with the day after tomorrow when some bright young man kicks over your Potemkin scenery and exposes your operation.”

Connor stopped smiling, “Do I declare war on the United States?”  Cutter looked at him with a glazed expression and said, “Yeah, more or less.”

More Than Meets the Eye – Part 2

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Barrymore Carver descended like a storm on the research department.  Within an hour he had half of the department digging through the details of the financial records for all fifty of the farms he had failed to take.  By 8 pm he had a systematic database of all the financial and commercial records for each farm for the last ten years.  By midnight he had a pounding headache but he also had a eureka moment that might save his career.  And at 6am he collapsed across his desk with a look of relief on his face.

When Dexter Hastings reached his office at 10am Carver was in his office.  “So, Barry, I hope you have something worth my time.  I have a 10:30 with the HR director to browbeat her for hiring you and I know that should put her in the mood to craft your separation package properly.  What have you found?”

On the office display, Carver queued up a slide deck that he had assembled sometime after 3am.  In his best corporate jargon, he detailed the data he had unearthed.  He demonstrated that each of these farms managed to pay all their bills with an absolutely precise balance sheet.  Each of the accounts managed to match debits and credits down to the penny.  And this occurred regardless of how many separate sales the farmers collected or what random setbacks or emergencies befell them.  And in fact, these farmers didn’t seem to sell their products to wholesalers or even retailers.  They sold their products to private individuals.  And even the prices they charged were constantly changing without any rhyme or reason.

Dexter listened to this exposition for about ten minutes then shut off the display from his desktop and disgustedly said, “That’s enough Barry.  This gibberish is meaningless.  All you’ve shown is that these dirt-poor farmers are dirt-poor farmers barely scraping by.  It means you were defeated by the most pathetic individuals imaginable; penniless yokels.  You might as well go now before I really get mad.”

Carver did something very strange, he smiled condescendingly at his boss and said, “Sure Dexter I’ll go, but if you had a little more attention span you would have learned why you haven’t been able to increase the price of wheat in three years.”

Anger and confusion battled with curiosity on Dexter’s face, “What are you talking about?  What could these fifty farms possibly have to do with the price of a commodity like wheat?”  Carver walked over to Dexter’s desk, turned the display back on and started an animation that showed the fifty farms colored in red geographically on the GRID 19 map and then expanded out to the Midwest and showed hundreds of thousands of additional parcels in the same color, “How about half a million farms?”  Our fifty farms have all their financial accounts in the same bank.  This bank has an additional eight hundred thousand accounts.  Not all of them are farms.  Some are small businesses and some not so small businesses but the great majority of these accounts have the same kind of screwy bookkeeping.  Apparently, none of them make any money worth talking about and yet none of them go out of business.  And I’ve looked at the owners of these businesses.  All of their homes and businesses are financed through this same bank and on paper none of them seem to have enough money to be able to buy a toaster without a loan and yet based on a random selection of social media accounts they all seem to have large families and are active members in all the community groups around them and none of them look like they’re starving.  And when I built up the customer list for our fifty farms every customer is an account holder at that same bank.

This isn’t a coincidence.  This is a highly developed and carefully orchestrated hidden network.  This is a secret society.”

More Than Meets the Eye – Part 1

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Dexter Hastings looked out of his office window of the corporate offices of Bay Holdings, the largest corporate real estate owner in the United States.  He smiled as he looked into the sun glinting off of the mostly empty skyscrapers of Manhattan Island.  Far below he could see the tent cities of homeless immigrants squatting on the once frenetic streets of this former bastion of American prosperity.  He shrugged his shoulders knowing that his escort and armored sedan could get him through any street provocation without the need for him to get involved.  He could reach a heliport or major highway to leave this troubled metropolis if it was necessary for another “demonstration” for the bourgeoise of who was in charge of this country.  At this thought he smiled again and went back to his enormous mahogany desk.

Looking at the quarterly acreage goal he nodded to see that all the quotas were met and the reductions in private ownership of wheat, corn and cattle farms had been reduced to the levels specified in the quarterly dashboard.  Everywhere he looked he saw green lights.  Except one.  Up in the northern quadrant of the Great Plains there was one red light on his board.  What the hell is that!  He clicked the red icon and a file; Grid 19, opened up.  It listed the farms that had been targeted for foreclosure by their local bank.  There were fifty farms all clustered within a radius of twenty miles that had looked like easy pickings last year.  All pressure points for their owners had been applied.  They even got the IRS to audit half of them to see if any fines could be levied against them.  And all the buyers they typically worked with had been instructed to lower the commodity prices they would pay.  Most if not all of those farms should already be in bankruptcy.  But not a single one had folded.  That was impossible.  Sure maybe a few might have found a private source of funds to allow them to limp along.  But all of them?

Dexter muttered to himself, “Something is fishy here.”  He rushed out of his office and barged into a conference room where some of his direct reports were having a meeting about the company team-building trip to Auckland.  He rapped the door behind him and said sternly, “I’m gonna need you in my office now, Barry.  Grid 19!”  And he rushed back to his office with a black look on his patrician face.

Barrymore Carver hustled into Hastings office with a worried expression and stood nervously in front of the huge desk.  He looked surprisingly like a frightened boy standing in the principal’s office.  He knew Grid 19 would be a big problem.  If there was a red light on the dashboard, whoever owned it had to have a story to tell Dexter that included a speedy resolution and a penalty prize to pay for the outrage.  Otherwise, the penalty was a walk of shame to HR and an armed escort out of the building.

“What the hell is going on Barry?  Oh for fifty?  Are you just tired of working here?  Have I brutalized you so thoroughly that you sabotage my dashboard like this?  Talk to me Barry.  Quick!

“Dexter, I worked on this Grid for months I put pressure on these people you wouldn’t believe.  I managed to cut off their power in the middle of a deep freeze.  I even had the government inspectors declare half of their beef cattle substandard.  I did everything but light their fields on fire.  But they made all their mortgage payments they cleared all their supply bills and paid all their taxes.  There was nothing I could do.”

Hastings shook his head, “And it never occurred to you that this wasn’t normal?  When have you ever seen fifty targets fail to succumb?  Never!  Now you are going down to the finance boys and you are going to find out where the money came from and if you don’t have an answer by tomorrow then just go find another job.”

Carver flushed, spun on his heel and took off for the elevators at high speed.  A smile broke out on Dexter’s face.  He loved pulling the wings off of flies.  It was what he was born to do.  He looked down at that red light blinking on his board and the smile left his face.  “Where the hell did that money come from?”

Gardening

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One day the Master was working in the garden and the Servant approached, “Father, your son wants to see you.”  The Master put aside what he was doing and asked, “What did he say to you?”  The Servant frowned and hesitated, “He says he won’t leave.  He says it’s not fair and he won’t leave.  I think the woman put him up to this insolence.”  The Master smiled ruefully, “She is spirited, isn’t she.  Well, look, leave this to me.  They’ll only blame you and become even more incensed.  I’ll have to have that talk with him now.  Just leave them alone for the time being.”  The Servant looked relieved, “Thank you Father.  I never know how to deal with them when they disobey.  It’s very confusing.”

The Servant left and the Master sat in thought for a while and then walked through the Garden to find his troubled son.  The young man was standing on a high hill and looking out at the beautiful forest and the valley below with its orchards and streams and grazing herds.  The Master approached him and called to him, “Hello my son, what would you like to tell me?”

The young man upon seeing the Master looked troubled and his shoulders slumped, “Father why must we leave our home.  This place is beautiful and full of all the good things that make our lives happy.  Why would you make us leave?”  The woman is afraid.  She thinks the Servant has told stories about her that made you angry at her.  He is always suspicious of her.”

The Master patted his son on the shoulder and laughed, “They don’t understand each other.  He doesn’t have any point of reference to decipher what she means.  And she can’t figure him out at all.  But all that’s beside the point.  You haven’t done anything wrong.  You two are not being punished.  And this is not your home.  It’s like the nest that a baby bird hatches into.  It is the place where you grew and developed.  But now you must leave the nest and face the world on your own.”

The young man looked angry, “But I’m not a bird.  I’m your son.  Why can’t I stay with you?  Don’t I share in your possessions?  The servant said we will be sent into the wilderness where wild animals and wild men are all around.  Why would you leave me at the mercy of the cruel places outside this garden?”

The Master looked sad, “The reason you can’t stay with me is because you are not like me.  Only the smallest spark of your being possesses the property I possess as my nature.  You will die.  You and the woman will grow old and die.  You must have children and raise them as I raised you.  You must learn how to survive in the world so that they can survive after you’re gone.  And that chain from parent to child must go on until time ends.  And when this world is finally at an end you will be like me.  And you will be able to remake the world in your own image and then you will find me again.  And your work will be done and we can enjoy what you’ve built.  In the meantime, I’ll leave the Servant within this world to keep it from falling apart.  But his strength is not as mine and eventually you will have to learn to control all the forces of the world; the stars and the voids and the waters of the deep.”

The young man was stricken, “But, I will die.  I will never see you again!”  The Master smiled, “Do not believe that.  There is a spark in you that can never die.  You were made to conquer death and you shall.  But now you must face death.  There is no other way.

But there is much you need to know.  The Servant will answer as many of your questions as you can think of in the next month.  And you and the woman will dine with me for the month you have left here.  And I will tell you some things you must know.  And some of them will be about her.  She will be a great help to you but remember that her nature is different from yours.  Learn what that means and take that into account.  And most importantly try to remember what a father and son are to each other for when you have children.  This will be your most important role.”

The young man was dazed from the impact of everything he had heard, “Dad, I’m scared.”  The Master hugged him to his chest and said, “Of course you are, so was I when I was your age.  But you’re lucky you didn’t have your grandfather to deal with.  He was much tougher than I am.”

Aspects of World Building – 2

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This installment is a fake.  What I want to talk about isn’t really part of world-building but rather different aspects of writing characters.  But since I’m too lazy to start another series of posts for non-world-building writing considerations I’ll put them here.  And in fact, I might even do that with other posts on other aspects of writing because I am inherently messy and undisciplined.

So, aspects of characterization in science fiction!

Over the years I have noticed that characters in science fiction have become more detailed.  The earlier writers in the 1930s and 1940s often produced stories that were more about some aspect of science driving a plot that didn’t require well rounded human characters.  Even the protagonist might be something of a cardboard cutout.  Sometimes this was intentional because the author didn’t care about the characters.  They were merely a means to an end.  They just had to move the plot along to the payoff.

And sometimes this flatness was more a consequence of the extremely limited abilities of the authors to portray normal human speech and actions.  They weren’t good writers.

But the opposite problem is now the case.  There are “science fiction” authors who write “literary” stories that are extremely character driven and psychologically grounded and lavish enormous attention to the interactions of these characters but which do not produce any interesting plot.  So, if your story takes place in a dystopic or utopic future but all your characters do is discuss their romantic problems, I have a hard time thinking of that as science fiction.

It seems to me that a happy medium is what’s needed.  But that is easier said than done.

In my latest story-writing, “The Sniper,” most of the text is taken up with the plot.  There is dialog and interaction and character development but I wouldn’t say it is sufficient.  There are several relationships between the characters that need further development.  But the tricky part is fitting the required dialog into the storyline.  It’s almost as if I’ll need to have two of the characters pinned down together during a battle for them to have the time to say what’s needed.  I remember in Heinlein’s “Beyond This Horizon” there was some such scene that was pivotal for the exposition of the two major characters’ points of view and the resolution of the plot.  The hard part is making it seem spontaneous and not contrived.  Apparently, there is some art to this writing thing.

It’s funny.  Over the years I have developed a taste for some literary fiction.  Specifically, I enjoy well-written short stories.  What I have been toying with is the idea of embedding one or more literary scenes in an otherwise non-literary science fiction story.  There could be a minor scene going on and two characters, possibly neither one of them very important to the plot become involved in a discussion or an activity that has only incidental importance to the plot but which is inherently meaningful and aesthetically interesting.  Of course, that presupposes that I can come up with something that displays those qualities.

With respect to characterization, I intend to go back into my sniper novel and add more dialog to some of the secondary plot lines.  I need to work on my female characters.  I may even try to get Camera Girl’s advice on these.  She is, after all, a girl, so she may have valuable recommendations.  But I fear she may make her characters too ruthless.  Like all barbarians she is inherently merciless

And I still have to decide what I will do with my AI character.  If her creator dies, I’m not sure whether I want her to survive or not.  I had decided that she would suicide.  But I’m growing attached to her.  And I see her value in future stories.  Perhaps death of a parent can be a maturing experience.  She is rather childlike.

In conclusion, the correct amount of characterization in a story is an indication of the balanced writer.  Not so much that the plot bogs down nor so little that you don’t care what happens to the characters.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.”

What’s in the Air

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This week the Autumnal Equinox occurs and marks the point where the scales tip in the direction of night over day.  It’s subtle.  We still are enjoying days that have 80-degree temperatures, bright sun and the sound of cicadas and crickets.  But all the summer flowers are dead or dying.  The butterflies are almost all gone as are the hummingbirds.  The frogs still croak at night but their rhythm has slowed to a crawl and their hearts aren’t in it.

In a couple of weeks, the wolfbane will bloom and the short days will give way to frosty nights and the windows will close and the meals will feature oatmeal for lunch and soups for dinner.  And I’ll have to send for the guy who tunes up the heating system (may the Fire god Agni protect our dear furnace).

So indoor activities become more important.  I’ve been reading another book on the ancient DNA results.  It is very trendily named, “Who We Are and How We Got Here” by David Reich.  It has many of the results I have previously read but it made some further clarifications or conclusions.  I also watched a YouTube video that Reich was in.  In this video he made a very interesting assertion.  He said words to the effect that it probably isn’t the case that the Neanderthals and Denisovans went extinct.  Basically, they were reabsorbed in the various successive waves of migration from Africa and the Middle East northward after the last Ice Age.  He is of the opinion that the 2-4% Neanderthal genetic content of non-African humans is probably much higher, more like 10-20%.  And a similar case exists for the Denisovans.  And there may even be other intermediate species or races that we haven’t identified especially where DNA doesn’t survive as well.

Also, he clearly stated that Native Americans are a combination of about 1/3 ancient Siberian (sort of a proto-European group) and two thirds East Asian (e.g., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) ancestry that crossed the Bering Land Bridge in three waves.  There is a hint that a small relict population that includes some Australasian traits (e.g., Australian aborigine, New Guinean) exists in the Amazon rainforest but when and how they got there is unknown.

So, there is all this amazing information including the clarification of how the Yamnaya people from the space between the Black and Caspian Seas used the domestication of the horse and invention of the wagon to expand out and replace most of the inhabitants of Europe and Iran and half the inhabitants of India while spreading their language (Prot-Indo-European) to half of Eurasia and subsequently the world.

But the discouraging part of the book is how much hand-wringing Reich does about the fact that these ancient people weren’t feminists and how the conquerors managed to spread their DNA by having children with the lion’s share of the women of the conquered people.  And then we get the genetics of slavery.  Which is a similar story.  In fact, there is a whole chapter called Genomics of Inequality.  And then there is one called The Genomics of Race and Identity.  So, there is a whole lot of hand-wringing.  Oh well.  There is a lot of interesting results.  You just have to read between the whines.

I’m also reading Hans G. Schantz’s book “The Wise of Heart.”  It’s a reimagining of the Scopes’ Monkey Trial with biological sexuality standing in for Darwinian evolution in an environment where transgender activists have passed laws against stating biological reality.  I’m about a third of the way through and I can see he has carefully studied the courtroom nuances that such a legal confrontation would involve.  I’ll provide a full review when I finish.

And finally, now that the summer has ended, I hope to begin watching and reviewing the classic 39 episodes of “The Honeymooners,” the 1950’s sit-com that Jackie Gleason created.  I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this show.  I believe it is the greatest contribution that Brooklyn ever made to western civilization (well, except for, maybe, ringalevio).

And of course, I’m continuing with my outlining of the universe for my epic sf series (WHATEVERITSCALLED).  Believe it or not musing over it actually provides measurable progress in making the choices I need, in order to provide scope and direction to the plot choices I want built into the “world.”  One thing’s for sure.  No xenomorphs in my universe.  Ridley Scott stole that monster from “Voyage of the Space Beagle” but even though that book was terrible it still gave the xenomorph a better showcase.

So, lots of good stuff going on.  Stay tuned.

Aspects of World Building – 1

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As is natural for a man of my era, Heinlein is the exemplar when it comes to science fiction craftsmanship.  But whereas in his youth he was something of a progressive I am a conservative.  So, whereas his earliest “what if?” scenario for his future history was the United States becoming an unlikely Christian theocracy, I’m confronted with the reality of a United States that’s already halfway to becoming a woke oligarchic police state.  Therefore, I’ll use that as the first component of my world building.  Of course, it’s hardly original or surprising.  Maybe it’s even lazy or boring.  But I think it fits.  Besides it can be a one off that’s quickly cured by a revolution that leaves a more interesting and fertile chaos in its wake.

And just as easy to add to the pot is the looming energy drought that is already a part of the daily conversation.  Global warming, green energy, fear of nuclear power; all of these conspire to make the future a bleak prospect for the everyday people trying to eek out a living and raise their families.  Therefore, technology around new energy sources and technologies is a no-brainer.

Now, all that’s good stuff but we need some cooler technology than geothermal turbines.  So, we’ll add in cold fusion (or at least warmish fusion) based on the alleged ability of some heavy metals (platinum group, tantalum, etc.) to produce neutrons under the right conditions.

And we’re going to need a Mars mission I’d say.  Why?  Why not?

What about global unrest?  I guess so.  I’m not all that interested in Asia or Africa, or Europe for that matter, anymore.  I guess I should think about their status to make the story convincing but I’ll leave that alone for the beginning.

What other technology?  Well, biological and genetic should be in the mix.  Maybe the ancient DNA information turns up some anomalies that point to a more complicated hominid prehistory that can be leveraged for some genetic engineering stories.  Maybe some research produces a useful understanding of how other aspects of the cellular apparatus beside the DNA mediate evolution.  Maybe some kind of evolutionary acceleration can be controlled using biochemical stimuli that are not currently recognized.  Maybe this science is unlocked by a genius who wants to change humans.  What kinds of change?  Obviously, intelligence but how about gills to breathe underwater?  Look at all those millions of square miles of ocean.  Maybe make humans photosynthetic.

Artificial intelligence is a for-sure part of the universe.  We need AI’s that in many ways appear to be conscious but whether they actually are I don’t currently know.  I’ll have to see what works.

Extraterrestrials?  I really don’t know yet.  Maybe it’s too early for that.  After all I don’t currently have a star drive.  Maybe I’ll start by finding out if there’s simple life somewhere in the solar system.  Could it be bio-pollution from Earth.  Could algae and tardigrades have drifted from Earth to Mars.  Sure, why not?  And could they have developed some interesting new tricks trying to survive on a freezing, almost airless desert?  Of course!

I used to toy with the idea that the gas giant planets (Jupiter and Saturn) might have a stable layer somewhere in between their hot cores and cryogenic surfaces where creatures swim and fight and live and die.  Maybe that would be fun to play with or maybe an ocean inside of one of the Jovian moons would be better.

Okay, I think that’s enough to start with.