23SEP2023 – Generational Differences

Happy first day of Fall here at the Autumnal Equinox.

So, I looked around at the news to see if anything jumped out at me.  Meh.  Lots of stuff is going on.  The Texas AG sat down with Tucker to talk about the impeachment hit the DOJ put out on him and how it failed.  That was pretty interesting but I wasn’t in the mood for that level of wonkery.

There are all kinds of articles about Menendez but I’ve got a weak stomach so the little bit I’ve done already is about half the fatal dose for that stuff.

But then I was watching a YouTube video by a sf critic called Bookpilled, where he listed what he considered the top science fiction books in his opinion.  The list was fairly interesting:

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

The Stars My Destination / Tiger! Tiger! by Alfred Bester

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith

City by Clifford D. Simak

Hothouse by Brian Aldiss

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Blood Music by Greg Bear

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

Blindsight by Peter Watts

So, because the list seemed thoughtful, I went onto one of his other videos.  This one was called Battle of the Hard Sci-Fi Classics [100 Book Challenge #35-40].  In this “challenge” the host read one or more books by the “Big Three.”  The works he read were “Rendezvous with Rama” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clarke; “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein; “I, Robot” and “The Gods Themselves” by Isaac Asimov.

Well, I’ll say Bookpilled was not particularly impressed by these golden age authors.  Clarke and Asimov were damned with faint praise but his true scorn was reserved for poor old Bob Heinlein.  Scathing would be a mild description of his comments about the Dean of Science Fiction.  Not amused.

And that brings me to the point of this little essay.  The reviewer Bookpilled, is a Millennial.  His sensibilities were formed in a different world from mine.  Now, much of his criticism of Heinlein (and of the other two authors to a lesser degree) center around the merits of the works as literature.  He finds fault with the characterizations of the protagonists, the seeming simplicity of the plot devices and even with the level of foreshadowing of events.

And in a lot of ways, the criticism is justified.  Heinlein’s characters were very often “types.”  The wise older man, the talented but naïve young man, the omni-competent hero, the socially awkward scientist.  And some of his books, especially in the later years were less successful as “works of art.”  But Bookpilled didn’t just give “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” low marks.  He was viscerally outraged by almost everything in the book.  He was especially upset about Heinlein’s handling of sex.  And, granted, sex is one of the truly weakest aspects of Heinlein’s writing, especially (apparently) from the point of view of Millennial readers.  But it’s interesting that his writing is completely unreadable for this apparently enthusiastic science fiction reader.  Why is this?  Frank Herbert is approximately of Heinlein’s generation but Herbert’s Dune is on Bookpilled’s top fifteen list of all time science fiction books.  So, what’s the deal?

I think the generational difference is that when science fiction was a new art form its audience was entirely made up of young men.  And the aspect of the work that earned it praise was almost entirely its capacity to inspire enthusiasm and wonder about the future.  Whether it was interstellar space travel, nuclear power, or alien life forms the loftiness of the prose and the depth of characterization were almost unimportant to the success of the story.  And so, when these older stories are read by 21st century critics they are not amused.  It matters not at all that “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is probably the first story to consider a political revolution between Earth and a space colony.  He’s read a host of books that took this concept and then updated for the present reader.

In these updated versions, the protagonist may be a black trans-lesbian with anti-white-colonial credentials and the computer will be the disembodied mind of Che Guevera or Woody Allen or someone else, depending on whether it’s an earnest political story, a comedy or something I can’t even imagine.  And the “diversity” allows the author to virtue signal to his audience the correctness of his story.  And if he’s a talented writer it allows him to add exotic points to the writing.

And that’s fine.  Every generation has its own art.  I think the important thing for me to note is that there is a place today for art that does not follow the template of the current day.  Bookpilled is a guy that looks like he’s somewhere in his early thirties.  So, his sensibilities are in line with his generation.  Now, I think he’s probably a fair example of his cohort and I’ll even say he’s probably not hostile to the world view of his parents’ generation.  He just sees things from his point of view.  But if he can enjoy Dune, Mote in God’s Eye, The War of the Worlds and even Frankenstein then he is reachable through art that speaks with a very different voice than his here and now literature.

So as an incipient science fiction author I think it behooves me to understand my potential market.  These young people are intelligent (well, at least the ones I want to reach).  Probably good writing, even if it comes from a different world view will interest them if it can provide sympathetic characters and interesting plot.  But if my plot challenges their world view it will need to be persuasive.  I won’t be able to win them over with exposition.  I’ll need to show them what I want them to understand.  That’s the challenge.

Well, why not?  Propaganda for its own sake is pretty awful even if it’s of your particular stripe.  So, Bob Heinlein be warned.  The Millennials have lost their patience and if you’re not careful they’ll take back your grandmaster’s hat and robe.  Get a copy of “Fifty Shades of Gray,” a highlighter and drop all the dears!

31AUG2023 – And Then, Quite Suddenly, Summer Was Over

Bradbury understood summer to a boy.

 

“And then, quite suddenly, summer was over.
He knew it first when walking downtown. Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dimestore window. They stood there unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there.
“Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Nickel tablets, dime tablets, notebooks, erasers, water colors, rulers, compasses, a hundred thousand of them!”
“Don’t look. Maybe it’s just a mirage.”
“No,” moaned Tom in despair. “School. School straight on ahead! Why, why do dime stores show things like that in windows before summer’s even over! Ruin half the vacation!”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

“June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past. And if he should forget, the dandelion wine stood in the cellar, numbered huge for each and every day. He would go there often, stare straight into the sun until he could stare no more, then close his eyes and consider the burned spots, the fleeting scars left dancing on his warm eyelids; arranging, rearranging each fire and reflection until the pattern was clear…
So thinking, he slept.
And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

The yearly ritual continues.

 

Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams by Tyler James Cook – A Book Review

Tyler Cook is the blogger known as the Portly Politico.  He writes about music, politics and all manner of things from the point of view of his corner of South Carolina.  And personally, I think he’s a very good guy.

Tyler has written a book, “Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams” that I would describe as a travelogue.  It chronicles his various trips to small towns in his state along with a trip to the Grand Canyon and environs.  The writing is a first-person account of the trials and tribulations that go along with travel.  Tyler describes the various sights and activities that he partakes in and we get his take on the experience of exploring the environment he sojourns through.  There are local festivals and local cuisine and we even travel with him on a river rafting excursion with his girlfriend.

As far as my recommendation, this book is for those who are looking for the Millennial take on the road experience.  Tyler enjoys experiencing the small-town world of his neck of the woods.  Reading this will provide you with that sensibility.

Dagon’s Spawn Goes for a Stroll

Dunwich is the home of more than just Cthulhu himself.  In addition to the First Selectman several of his fellow Great Old Ones inhabit the borders of the township.  For instance, several of Dagon’s descendants inhabit the various lakes, ponds and swamps that overgenerously hydrate the area.  As I’ve often mentioned I am adjacent to one of these swamps and from time to time one of its inhabitants sojourns through or near the grounds.

Today I was in the west field collecting the scattered remains of some cattle that a shoggoth must have devoured there when I heard the sound of tree trunks creaking and cracking under the strain of some horribly massive object forcing its way against them.  As I watched I could see some enormous white pines toppling over far off in the distance.  I cautiously made my way to the location where the trees had fallen and I saw a terrifying sight.  One of the Deep Ones, possibly Dagon’s oldest child was just finishing off the shoggoth as a small meal.  It was of course eating it alive and its victim was changing form and letting out the most horrifying sounds ever heard by a human ear.  Well, except for that time Kamala Harris laughed at one of Biden’s jokes.  That was worse.

When the Deep One was finished with its meal, it belched thunderously and the air was filled with a sulfurous fume that nearly finished me off before the wind changed direction.  Then it hauled its titanic bulk out of the mud and battered a path back into the deeper end of the swamp where it disappeared below the surface with a sickening sucking sound.

Later when the sun had set the foot prints began to glow with a sickly yellow phosphorescence and any creature, insect or amphibian that touched those glowing patches jumped away in pain and rapidly died.  And I happened to witness later that night when an enormous gas bubble broke the surface of the swamp and a yellow glowing fume drifted up.  All the leaves above the pond immediately shriveled up and fell into the water.  I guess the shoggoth was a little greasy even for one of Dagon’s kin.  I wonder if they make Alka seltzer in Great Old One size.

Luckily (or unfortunately) I had my camera with me during the event and I had the presence of mind to capture the great creature returning through the haunted wood.

I intend to send this photographic evidence to the Department of Cryptozoological Studies at Miskatonic University where I studied under the eminent dagonologist Clyde Crashcupp.  With his decades of study and razor-sharp brain he’s sure to earn at least a Nobel prize with this evidence.  I may have to lend him a tux.  He’s kind of a hermit and wears a rope to hold his pants up.

Well, I’d better get back to my chores.  There’s a family of ghouls in the neighborhood and I need to get the fences fixed before they wander by.

The Means of Production – Part 1

So, what to write about tonight?  Tucker?  Elon?  The Biden Crime Family’s Congressional investigation?  Trump and his various legal problems.  The Republican presidential contenders?  Dementia Joe’s sinking ratings?  The crime-drenched cities?  The invasion at the southern border?  The collapsing banks?  Stagflation?  The Ukraine War?  Bud Light’s ongoing sales freefall?

Meh.  Just not in the mood.  Maybe it’s the crazy local things I’m involved in.  Maybe it’s too much same old, same old.

Well for whatever reason, let’s talk about something different.

I was reading recently about a studio that has been producing family friendly movies.  Mostly Christian movies but not exclusively.  Let’s call them Christian friendly.  They recently had a hit with a movie called the Jesus Revolution, “a feel-good movie about hippies who returned to Christ during the 1970s, starring former “Cheers” and “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer – has grossed more than $52 million since its debut just a few weeks ago, making it the most successful film released by studio heavyweight Lionsgate since 2019.”

Many years ago, I remember watching a few of the movies produced by Christian churches and other organizations.  And although it was refreshing to see entertainment that stressed religious values and themes, they were notable for very simplistic plots and amateurish acting.  I guess the cast was more living the moments of the plot rather than acting them.

““The biggest critique on Christian art of the last thirty plus years, is that it’s not good, or it hasn’t been good,” said Terence Berry, COO of Wedgwood Circle, a nonprofit that connects investors and creators to develop projects that are informed by their Christian faith. “And I do think there have been huge strides made in people creating content for the faith market.””

Move forward twenty years and the producers now out there like Wedgwood and Angel Studios are producing movies that can be viewed by mainstream audiences without eye-rolling.  Berry calls it “a third way.”

““Can you offer stuff that is not perceived as faith market, and that is really well done, and it’s good, true, and beautiful, and it’s speaking to larger questions and it is aligned with your faith,” he asked, “but it is done so in a way that allows other people from outside the faith to engage and like that content?””

In the article the writer mentions that these producers are producing movies and arranging theater distribution using both investor and crowd-funded capital.  And the products include movies, music, books, television, and radio shows.  In fact, there are even animated movies in the works.

So why is this interesting?

I think because Hollywood is melting down.  Other than super hero movies Hollywood has only had a very few actual blockbuster hits in the last ten years.  Tom Cruise in Top Gun is that exception that proves the rule.  And it’s especially relevant because it’s one of the few movies that bucks all the stupid trends that have cost Hollywood its audience.  It’s patriotic.  It doesn’t pound away at woke tropes.  It doesn’t replace entertainment with an agenda.  It doesn’t denigrate its audience.

So, with Hollywood marching into the ocean and at the same time starving audiences for wholesome content.  And with streaming and the lower price of computer-generated imaging making fantasy and other genera movies orders of magnitude cheaper than just a few years ago, this is the perfect time for small production companies to provide people with entertainment choices they sorely lack.

And I think it’s finally, finally beginning to happen.  I’ve watched some short sci-fi movies on YouTube that come close to Hollywood level special effects.  And because of how Hollywood is using “diversity, inclusion and equity” there are many unemployed straight, white, male actors, writers, directors and other creatives that could use work.  In such an environment I think we’ll start seeing more and more breakout productions that owe their success to giving people the entertainment that Hollywood refuses to produce.

But here’s the point.  All of these people trying to produce this content didn’t get into it because they always wanted to build their own movie studios.  They’re doing it because the movie studios told them that the content they wanted was wrong and shouldn’t exist.  So, they had to become movie makers.  Same thing with book authors.  The books we like are so evil that the publishers are retroactively changing the text of old classics like Roald Dahl’s children’s books.  Same for music, same for art.  Same for education.  If we want what we think is right we’re going to have to make it ourselves.  Internalize that and employ it as needed in your life and you’ll start changing things for the better.

If you don’t like the crap on display in woke world then search out something better at the fringes.  And if that doesn’t exist, then do it yourself.  That’s the lesson.

I intend to start looking for some of these movie projects and try them out.  I’ll report back on what I find.

The Bard’s Birthday

Whether Shakespeare really wrote his plays or they were the product of the Earl of Oxford I would like to take this excuse to heap praise on the man who created so many wonderful words.

Any man who could write:

‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’

and

‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’

and

‘I  am a man more sinned against than sinning.’

deserves great praise from me.  I have gotten great amusement seeing and hearing and reading his works.  They are a treasure for all mankind.

Happy birthday Billy boy.

 

 

Dunwich in the Time of Mud

Spring has arrived with its endless supply of muck and slop and just in time with it the town has gone topsy turvy.  Revolution has broken out.  The Old Guard and the Young Turks are having a set to and I’m caught in the middle.  I’ll be working more and making a little extra money but being of an extremely lazy nature I’d prefer the opposite.  But there are some interesting aspects to this turn of events.  New England town democracy in action is a bizarre force to observe.  The fact that the Old Guard is putting up a fight is almost unheard of in this neck of the woods.  I’ll have a ringside seat for the proceedings so it may make an interesting story when all is said and done but I expect that much angst and hard feelings will spill over into everyday life.

But at the same time, it will also cut into my blogging time, in fact it already has.  And on top of that I’ve mended my ways and now have begun applying myself to my fiction writing.  I cranked out four thousand words over the last three days and that has also cut into my posting.  But that’s all to the good.  The story is expanding and becoming more interesting.  I’ve definitely decided to nuke my hero’s base at some point.  I mean what’s a science fiction story without an atom bomb somewhere?  No one calls them atomic bombs anymore.  It’s nuke this and nuke that.  Thermo-nuclear.  Who came up with that name?  Thermo- implies heat.  Are there any cold nuclear explosions?  I guess if they ever figure out an actual cold fusion process, we could talk about it but anyway I think I’m going to nuke my base.

I’ve had to write some personal scenes into the book.  The hero gets to see his family for the first time in a long while and there are grandkids and his son’s widow and that was tricky.  I think I did alright which surprised me.  I’m not a very touchy feely kinda guy but I could see that leaving out his relationship with his family felt fake.  So, there you go, human interest.  What’s next, an Oprah interview for our hero?  I’ve even added an AI character.  That’s actually kind of fun.  It’s funny once you get going these things kind of write themselves in.  Anyway, the story is percolating along.

But all this stuff really just enhances the blogging.  You can’t just write about national stories all the time.  It’s just too much of the same thing.  We’ve got to be in the story too, or what’s the point?  I could just listen to Tucker Carlson or some other talking head.  That’s why I like when some of the guest contributors have something to add.  I like to get some other angles on things and I’m sure that’s the same with everybody else.

I think the whole Trump indictment story is both a ridiculous joke and at the same time an important object lesson.  It’s important that everyone on our side realize that this is not our country anymore and it doesn’t work by the rules we were told apply.  The people in charge change the rules as needed.  They don’t play fair and they play as rough as needed.  And if the January 6th prisoners aren’t enough to convince you of that just wait till Donald Trump gets his treatment.

So anyway, busy, busy, busy but still keeping my nose to the grindstone.  Wow, that sounds painful!

21MAR2023 – Microscopic Images – Snail Munching

Many years ago I kept snails as pets.  I remember how creepy it was listening to them munching egg shells that I gave them to help grow their shells quicker.  They are weird and interesting critters.  I once started a science fiction story where a geneticist combined the brains and tentacles of a cephalopod with the body of a giant African snail to produce a sentient creature that survives a thermonuclear war and becomes a threat to the surviving humans.  But I got bored with the story and never finished it.

 

Could This Be the Year of the Jackpot?

Could This Be the Year of the Jackpot?

Robert Heinlein was an American science fiction writer back in the middle of the last century.  He was considered one of the best writers during what used to be called the “golden age” of science fiction because he wrote sf that kept the science front and center.  If he wrote about interplanetary nuclear-powered rockets, he made sure the physics was legitimate.

But he also wrote less realistic stories that involved more fantastic types of plots.  He wrote one short story called “The Year of the Jackpot” in which a statistician was examining an enormous number of trends such as sunspot activity, bank failures, extreme weather conditions, bankruptcies, crime, war and other more esoteric data.  And what he discovered was that all the various trends were headed for unusual maxima and minima at precisely the same time.  And what he predicted was that every bad thing was about to happen all at once.

And of course, that included nuclear war, invasion, plagues, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes.  So, he ducks into a well-stocked remote cabin with his girlfriend and a conveniently found milk cow that wanders by and survives the year of the jackpot.  Of course, just as the story ends, he realizes the biggest jackpot of all is the sun going nova.  Bummer.

Now this is silly season science fiction.  It’s the kind of story that Rod Serling would have put on the Twilight Zone (if he could have afforded to pay the kind of royalties that Heinlein would have wanted for his story to be adapted for television).  But it’s also true that sometimes when things start going wrong, they synergize even more misfortune until you end up with a real disaster.  Take for instance the Dust Bowl.  The financial conditions of the Great Depression aggravated the need of farmers to overuse their soil to try to keep up on their mortgages and ended up destroying their farms and exacerbating the erosion that was already taking place.  And the dislocation of all these farmers heading to California further damaged the economy.  The weather conditions that increased the problem were probably just random but put together they seemed like some kind of biblical plague.

Now look at our situation.  Back in 2001 we have the 9-11 attacks and that catalyzes the start of two big wars and a bunch of smaller ones.  Then we have the banking crisis of 2008 and that catalyzes an even bigger disaster, namely the presidency of Barack Obama.  And he begins the process of weaponizing the federal government against the citizens of the United States.  And that radicalizing of the Deep State may be responsible for things like the program that created the COVID virus and the mRNA vaccines and definitely the Ukraine war and all the other color revolutions spawned at the CIA and State Department.

And all these consequences seem to be resonating and catalyzing each other and making things worse and worse.  And from there it’s not a big leap to wonder if the whole thing ends up in a Year of the Jackpot climax.  And it wouldn’t be much different from Heinlein’s.  Coincidentally his make-believe world was suffering from transgender couples, bioweapons, horrendous rains and snowfall in California and other climate anomalies such as we’ve been seeing this winter.  And Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken have been working overtime to see if they can add a full nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States just to make sure we don’t miss out on any part of the story.

Now I don’t at all believe that the universe has some built in clock that coordinates all the good and bad “trends” so that a year of the jackpot is some kind of inevitable event.  I’m fully aware that human actions are plenty enough cause for all of the chaos and dysfunction we see around us.  In fact, it’s obvious that a lot of the chaos is intentional and has very discernible motives around consolidating power and accumulating money.

But I’ll tell you one thing.  There is such a thing as luck, good and bad.  And our luck has been running on the very bad side for a good long time.  Maybe a little prayer for divine intercession wouldn’t be out of line.

Another Snippet from My Book

I’ve been trying to speed up my writing but there’s always something distracting me.  but I thought it would be fun to post a little part of a scene.

“After the meeting, Director Sparks called Chastain and told him to meet him at Sparks’ temporary office in the Pentagon.  When Chastain arrived Sparks briefed him.  “We can’t play around anymore.  I’ve been given unlimited resources to catch this man.  I want you to act as the lead.  There will be three separate teams.  One will investigate the physical evidence at the Hoover building site to figure out what the hell we’re up against.  The second team will pursue the cyber trail of whoever released the video.  That leak must be plugged.  But most important, the third team will find Boghadair.  You will have first priority on all the surveillance infrastructure, public and private.  You can write a blank check for whatever you need but I want that man in custody within the week.  If not, your head is on the block.  And that’s not a joke.  If Boghadair isn’t in shackles in a week from today you’re done.”  Chastain bit back some bitter words and said, “Okay, I’ll need a command center with a room where I can crash; bed, shower, kitchen.  Tell me the cost center numbers I can charge to and give me the contact information for my three team leads.  I’ll find Boghadair for you or you can have my job.  But I wonder what else I’ll find.  Apparently, this thing is a lot bigger than one man.”

Sparks handed him a briefcase.  “All the documents are on a drive.  There’s a folder with all the contact information and the codes you need to access the databases and the systems you’ll need.  I also want a list of government officials that Boghadair might target and conjecture on the order of attack.  I want that list by tomorrow morning.”  Chastain nodded his head.  Sparks growled, “That’s all.”  And Chastain left the office and walked out of the building.  As he was leaving the building he thought, “You’re at the top of that list you fool.”

As Director Sparks left his temporary office that night that very idea occurred to him.  He was headed home to a gated community in one of the most expensive suburbs of Washington.  And he was scared.  He decided to travel back to his home by a different route.  Taking this circuitous route and seeing no cars following him he slowly calmed down and by the time he was within a mile of his home he felt foolish about his fears.  When he was caught at a red light that usually never changed on him he was a little confused.  Then he noticed that the video display on his dashboard shifted from the typical menu view to a video feed.  He could see a man in the driver’s seat of a car.  After a second or two he realized he was looking at an image of himself.  He was for a second stunned and by the time he comprehended his peril the bullet was already entering the side of his head.  When his foot slipped off the brake his car rolled into the intersection and was struck by traffic going through the intersection.  The local police were on the scene rather quickly and alerted the FBI based on the car’s license plate number.  Late that night the report reached George Chastain and his first thought was, “I guess I should let the Attorney General know he’s next on the list.””

Gee, it’s fun killing bad guys.  It just feels right.  Well, on to the Attorney General.