Here’s another audio file on YouTube of Leonard Nimoy reading one of Heinlein’s short story. You know, Heinlein’s poem is pretty good. Better than anything i could write.
Category: Book Reviews
Insightful book reviews by our staff
Heinlein’s Short Stories – Gentlemen Be Seated
Today I was rooting around on YouTube and found this audio version of one of Heinlein’s short stories from “The Green Hills of Earth” collection; “Gentlemen, Be Seated.”
I haven’t read that story in fifty years. Unsurprisingly it’s still a good story. Nimoy’s voice sounds very un-Spock-like. I think he does a very decent job.
Cthulhu Attempts to Swallow the Sun and Fails Badly
The First Selectman was miffed about something. Maybe his shadow appeared a little too portly or his reflection in a dank lake was a little too unflattering. Whatever it was he attempted to swallow Earth’s star. Luckily he’s not the Elder God he used to be. All he got was a nasty burn around his mouth tentacles, a case of butthurt and a dose of reality.
I collected this shot at the moment of maximum effort.
Metallic Crystals, Imagination and the Persistence of Memory
In July 1971 I had finished up my freshman year in high school. And I was a poor kid who used the Brooklyn Public Library as my main source of books. So each month I would trek to my local branch and take out the latest (or the closest to latest) issue of Analog Science Fiction magazine. In that month’s edition, there was an illustration on the back page of what was a photograph of what was purported to be a futuristic city that was being eroded by unimaginable eons of time as it lay dead under a dying red star at the end of the universe.
Actually, it was a scanning electron microscope photo of lead-tin telluride crystals.
But it sort of reminds me of the bismuth crystals that I used for today’s photo of the day.
I wonder if the anonymous author of that blurb was John Campbell. But I can understand his imaginative description. It is apt.
Funny how these things stick with you. Wow, that’s almost 53 years ago.
The Future History of the People’s Revolt
Writing my sniper story has been an interesting project. I’ve recently realized that it provides me with a way to escape from the repressive environment that we find ourselves in. I can imagine a world where people find a way to escape from the Left’s stranglehold on our lives. Science fiction was often described as escapist fiction; an escape from the real world. Dreaming of a trip to the Moon or Mars was a highly enjoyable pastime. I remember as a kid going to the library and taking out the Heinlein juveniles one by one and wishing there were a hundred instead of a dozen or so. I guess it’s human to dream about a richer or more exciting or a better world.
And when I was a kid, we then got the Apollo program and we really did go to the Moon. Well, maybe we actually will revolt from the Left. After all, it’s been done. The Soviet Union fell. Communism or Wokeism or whatever anti-freedom regime we find ourselves under is no godlike entity. It’s just people who crave control over others to enrich themselves. Surely such an enterprise can be swept away if it ceases to provide the population with a reason to keep it going.
So, I don’t flatter myself that whatever MacGuffin I invent to carry my story forward; whether it be nuclear powered drilling equipment or fusion reactors or giant lasers; has any special rationale for really coming true. But that’s not really important. Just as the terra-forming capability that Heinlein’s stories are based on, is completely fictitious and the Earthlike conditions on his Mars and Venus stories are completely erroneous does nothing to ruin the enjoyment that these stories afforded and still allows a fan of these stories to imagine that actual planetary exploration is an exciting and worthwhile human endeavor. After all, a manned mission to Mars is something being seriously discussed and planned.
So, I plan to write a series of stories in a fictitious future where a band of plucky heroes upset and upend the oligarchs who currently run our world and make a fight out of regaining their freedom. As with Heinlein’s Future History, not all of the stories may be aligned with each other. I can always cover up my mistakes by pleading alternate realities in the “multiverse.” Sure, why not? If Marvel can have multiple spidermen then why can’t I play fast and loose with the future?
Now I’m not doing anything that isn’t already out in the world. In about two weeks a movie is opening up called “Civil War.” And this movie has the United States broken into warring factions and a ground assault on the White House. So, my stories will be well within the mainstream. The only difference is that probably this movie and any other movies or “best sellers” that come out will cast the Left as the heroes and the Right as the awful traitors. Well, that’s alright. To each his own I always say.
So, thanks, to Uncle Bob Heinlein for his inspiration. I’m officially in the future prediction business. But in the words of L. Sprague de Camp “It does not pay a prophet to be too specific.” So, I better learn to be vague.
Guest Contributor – Xavier – 23MAR2024 – Genre vs Literature
This post raises two important and related questions. One is the question of genre fiction versus fiction/literature or entertainment versus literature. The other, how technology impacts this balance.
On the first point I think the best guide for the use of imagination in narrative fiction or really any literature is could it be real. That is, literature always fabricates events, but only events that could be real, at least to the viewer. This may seem overly restrictive, but even if we look at even the most fantastic events in literature, they are literature precisely because they are convincing. The narrative is not just believable, but super believable, as the clumsy moniker of surrealism suggests. The reader has to have a reason to suspend disbelief and that reason has to be both compelling and convincing.
This is why Macbeth can include incanting witches and Hamlet a ghost. Same for Dickens, Joyce, etc. We don’t mind Old Hamlet showing up every night to drive the action. His presence is utterly real to mind of any son that lost a father to murder. That reality may be the reality of a dream or some subconscious memory acting on a son’s emotions, but it plays as real almost universally.
The second question relating to our kids watching stories inside game applications like Minecraft and its relation to literature and media has a very direct precedent in movies. As soon as movies got past the novelty stage when they were sequestered in menageries they looked to literature to augment the spectacle. I can be argued that screenplays almost never satisfactorily translate literature, not even drama where the analogy seems direct.
I believe literature doesn’t translate well because movies, like radio, video and now video games, are essentially entertainment media mixed with mass communication. It is not novel to say that the commercial dimension of these media plays a much greater role than they do in traditional art forms, which were mostly centered around patrons.
Some radio dramas, such as those produced by there Mercury Players, seem to approach the experience of attending a play. So maybe these mass media/entertainment forms can become like literature if they survive long enough to establish the required conventions to seem real. But movies and radio were quickly supplanted by TV and now video games. So perhaps the balance for literature requires a limit of commerce and reliance on technology, as these certainly are not timeless.
Most traditional “critics” would say that the need to seem “real” is undermined, rather than supported, by technical or futuristic artifacts. They don’t make good literature impossible, but they raise the bar to get an audience to suspend disbelief and to tell the underlying story that the reader wants. This is why genre fiction is such good fodder for farce. If the story doesn’t need these obstacles, it’s probably better off without them. But if the fun in writing with them can overcome their drag, the story could soar even with rockets. They’re just a heavy narrative load to bear.
What Should Science Fiction Be About?
There is an endless debate about whether science fiction should be literature or genre fiction. By that I mean should the story be about the humanity of the characters or about the rocket ships and ray guns. Now this is an artificial dichotomy. Even in the pulpiest of space operas, the humanity of the protagonists, even the humanity of the non-humans is always a factor. But when the story basically becomes “Pride and Prejudice” with only a stray rocket ship thrown in as a fig leaf then we’ve stepped over the line to lit-sf.
A hundred years ago the pulp market said science fiction was about the rocket ships. And that school of thought dominated during the first half of the twentieth century. Sometime in the 1960s literary science fiction began. I’m sure its roots go further back and it as yet was only the beginnings of what it would become, but the earlier dominance of space opera and pulp type stories began to give ground to more sophisticated writing styles and psychological and sociological considerations in the stories. Women authors and progressives began to address social justice issues.
Sixty years later the pendulum has probably swung as far in the direction of literary science fiction as it can go. Almost every science fiction publisher employs editors who probably wouldn’t allow a story published that ignored the social justice pieties that define the acceptable mindset of this editorial class. And these approved stories have not been wildly successful. In fact trad publishing is in pretty bad shape. But with the advent of self-publishing the possibility exists for other types of stories to begin circulating again.
But the question still needs to be asked what are the relative sizes of the markets for “literary sf versus stories about rocket ships. My guess is that if the right kind of rocket ship stories were available, they would garner at least half the market. I think it’s the case that many of the boys that currently spend most of their time playing video games would be the market for this kind of science fiction. Currently from what I’ve heard they read a kind of fan fiction that involves stories taking place in the “universe” of the games they like playing. I assume they aren’t attracted to the literary sf but I could see them being attracted to more adventurous types of stories and these would fit more in line with the kind of pulp/space opera stories that used to make up science fiction.
Of course, it can be done backwards where writers of pulp sf could go to work producing this fan fiction to an already existing game universe. But to me this seems restrictive. Having to limit your creative directions according to a video game seems sophomoric.
But in reality, there are markets for all different kinds of stories. The odd thing is that the traditional publishers and even Amazon act as gatekeepers to limit the types of stories that receive publicity and support. In effect their limiting their own profits for ideological reasons. So, this is the takeaway for authors. In order to get seen you have to tailor your work to fit the gatekeepers’ requirements or you have to market your work to an audience that doesn’t know you’re there.
Well marketing is a serious business and based on what I’ve read cracking the Amazon algorithm is not for the faint of heart. But still, I think trying to find an audience for your book is preferable to writing a book you don’t like in order to get an editor to approve it.
So, a marketing I will go.
Ballad of the Duel
The highlight of Cyrano. As I end the refrain, thrust home.
16MAR2024 – And Now for a Message from Our Sponsor
Saturday dawns sunny and brisk. Very refreshing. So much so that I resent sitting here to write. But yesterday was a clamorous and dreary day of work. So as Bob Cratchit observed, “I am behind my time.” So here I am and I will take the time to provide cogent analysis on whatever it is that demands comment. But “demands” is a stretch here. I refuse to write further on Trump’s many legal battles. When and if they reach a critical juncture, meaning, when they actually drag him off to the gulag, then I shall say my piece.
As for the latest political polls; yes, yes, we all know Trump’s winning. Even a Democrat shill like Nate Silver is openly admitting that Biden is losing significant minority voters along with other important components of the Democrat coalition like the young and women. But that’s all been said. Sure, I’ll mention it in passing if it seems especially pointed. But we are months and months away from even the conventions and by then, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny may be the Democrat candidate. So, no, let’s put that aside for now.
I’ve already spoken about cannibal migrants this week. Check.
Camera Girl has complained about the ruinous price of food including the corned beef for her birthday celebration this weekend. Check.
Russians killing Ukrainians and Ukrainians killing Russians. Check. Check.
So, what, what, what?
Well, truth be told, I don’t feel like talking about any of that crap right now. It’s been said and we can take a break from saying the same things again.
If you notice I’ve been putting up some stuff from movies and books. I find this stuff makes me feel better. And I’m looking for more of it. This kind of stuff makes the day better and reinforces the things I think are good and healthy to think about. And I openly encourage anyone who has anything that they want to share with the rest of the readers to link it and I’ll put it up. Even Weird Al Yankovic (within reason of course).
Inevitably because I’m old and because a lot of what’s new stinks, the things I’ll point to will be old. And the amount of high definition will be limited. I hope my younger readers will forgive this. But honestly watching some black and white footage won’t hurt any of them too badly.
I was thinking the other day that Shakespear died more than four hundred years ago and yet his English is still ninety percent understandable by even average readers. Newness isn’t really a very good selection criterion for entertainment or really much of anything outside of technology. Humans are still humans. What needs to be done is to attempt to reintroduce the younger audience with their cultural heritage. Whether it’s Shakespeare or the Marx Brothers, the human condition is pretty constant. Iron Man and Odysseus are similar characters with similar problems. Thor is just Achilles with CGI added in.
So, I apologize in advance if I stop banging away quite as often on how the end of Western Civilization is approaching and instead put-up examples of why we should care if Western Civilization is saved. I’ll try to strike the right balance of outrage and fond remembrance so that your experience here is stimulating.
On with the show.
Signifying Something
Macbeth has a speech late in the play. His wife has suicided and his enemies are gathering for the kill. And all his actions and all his hopes have been swallowed up into a nightmare. He says,
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
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.”
Macbeth: Act 5, Scene 5
And sometimes our plight summons a similar feeling in me. Our enemies call all the shots. They control the heights of all the power structures. They’ve even done a thorough job of brain-washing the younger generation into thinking that all the destruction of our way of life was the inevitable working of capitalism. So that a decline into an impoverished welfare state is the reasonable and just future for themselves. That life is but a walking shadow. And that resisting this fate is a hopeless effort, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And controlling the youth, they determine the future.
I don’t deny that is probably where the smart money is currently bet.
But for whatever reason I disagree. Maybe it’s just personal prejudice. But, when I look at both sides, I find that our side has the more interesting characters; a more compelling plot. We have a better story to tell.
The Left is selling despair. Their message is: give up and die.
They say trade your life for a cash card and a smart phone and a grimy cell in a youth hostel and gender assignment surgery and the promise that you won’t have to think or try.
And I’m sure that there is a good-sized audience that will walk down that dead end. Millions. But I refuse to believe that everyone will follow it. There will be a good-sized audience; millions, that will say, “That’s all you’re selling?”
And some of them will hear what our side has to say. And I think that may be enough to decide things in the long run. An army of zombies, even an army of millions, is still mostly nothing. And it’s an aging army. Zombies don’t have children. They get older and weaker every day.
Our side has the advantage that what we say not only has the ring of truth, it is the truth. Calling nonsense, nonsense and basing your actions on logic and reality even in the short run is the winning strategy.
The fact that they’ve rigged so many parts of the system we live under doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. It just means you have to use your head to avoid the snares and pitfalls they’ve set for us. With the Left in authority in many roles it’s obviously not going to be easy to flourish. There is a lot of pain and frustration involved. But as long as this country is still the best option for living a somewhat free existence then it’s worth our while to work around their traps.
And even just looking at the messaging that seems to be moving around in the media, even in the mainstream media, it seems that our version of the story is resonating with all kinds of different people. I think that Biden and his band of weirdos have so thoroughly botched their transformation of America that they’ve even alienated a lot of the coalition of the oppressed. If you watch the interviews even the zombies are semi-awake and complaining that their free stuff is too expensive.
The Democrats can steal elections and run roughshod over the Constitution but eventually they’ll end up like the Soviets. Their system will degenerate into a Potemkin Village and one day the cardboard will collapse and there won’t be anything left but angry peasants with pitchforks.
So, for whatever reason I don’t feel like just giving up. And anyone else who has something to say other than, “let’s give up,” can say it here.