Well, that was so much fun I thought I’d try for another one:
photog’s Second Law of Science Fiction – Thou shalt not bore the poor reader to death.
And really this should be the first law because it really is essential. Honestly, if the reader is interested, he will probably forgive anything else; excessive use of time travel, repetitive battle scenes, gratuitous sex and violence, even scurrilous attacks on political enemies. As long as the story keeps the reader’s interest, it’s a success.
Now this is an iron law for any kind of fiction. But because different genres have different readers it behooves the author to pay attention to what his particular genre considers interesting. So, if you write romantasy you must make sure you include plenty of female protagonists being ravaged by minotaurs or some other equally absurd mythical beast.
But if you write science fiction and especially if you write hard science fiction you have to make sure you can pass the science literacy test when it comes to the gadgets and phenomena that you hang your tale on. So, that’s step one.
Step two is to make the characters and the plot interesting. And this is where some of the best hard sf writers are found lacking. For myself, personally, Arthur C Clarke seemed to have a hard time writing characters that were actual people. Most of the time there just didn’t seem to be a recognizable human being on the page. And I’m not saying he was a bad writer. He wasn’t. He was quite skilled. It just seemed that he didn’t care about the human aspect in the story. Now compare this to Isaac Asimov. When I recently (four or five years ago) reread the Foundation books I thought the plot was at times marginal. But even the less developed characters seemed to have recognizable voices and personalities. Asimov managed to make the characters seem somewhat alive. And live humans are interesting to live humans. And since the people buying books are (for the most part) live humans it becomes critically important to write characters that appeal to the book buying public.
And that is why even the most technically savvy sf author must (in my opinion) learn how to simulate human characters. And that is okay. Because we don’t expect Tolstoy. You can make the characters resemble almost any humans you’ve ever met. In fact, it’s better if you mix it up and include a bunch of different types. This will help to avoid the serious problem of all your characters sounding and thinking exactly like you. And believe me, that is a big problem.
So, I guess the second law means that a good science fiction writer must also be a good writer in general if he doesn’t want to fail miserably.
Last week I reviewed “Project Hail Mary” and I approved of it as high quality science fiction. But am I being consistent? Should I be calling it fantasy? In other words, can a story based on a completely impossible premise be considered science anything? So, let’s talk about this.
Andy Weir used a microorganism of extraterrestrial origin as the basis for his story. This lifeform which he called astrophage had a complement of remarkable properties that made it both the source of an existential threat to human existence on Earth and the key to human interstellar travel. Astrophage can convert light into mass and it can also convert mass into light. This is “explained” by claiming that it can harness the energy produced when neutrinos and their anti-matter opposites (which apparently are also just neutrinos) annihilate each other forming light. So somehow, the living cell can store neutrinos and then harvest them to produced light that can be used as a motive force to propel the astrophage at velocities approaching light speed.
Okay, this is gibberish. None of those things can be done in a particle accelerator, never mind inside the protoplasm of a cell. So, all of this is no different than E. E. Doc Smith pointing to his “inertialess” drive that allows the Galactic Patrol and their Boskonian enemies to hurtle through interstellar space at many time the speed of light. It’s just hand-waving to allow the action in the story to occur in a time period that allows for a fun story.
Now, granted, Weir at least restricts his velocities to the limit that General Relativity permits. And he allows time dilation and other relativistic effects to govern the fate of his astronauts. But having his starship reach 0.92 c is based on an energy production method that is completely inexplicable by any physics or biology that we can point to.
So, why isn’t that fantasy?
I think I’m going to invent a rule of science fiction.
photog’s First Law of Science Fiction – Thou shalt not change more than one basic law of physics when making a good story.
So, if Andy Weir wants astrophage to have a biological basis for matter/antimatter conversion then everything else about his story has to be “legit.” So, he can use astrophage as his workaround for amazing energy density for things like interstellar flight but everything else still requires the laws of physics, chemistry and biology to work the way they do in the real world. Now some folks might begrudge him xenonite because somehow, he turned a noble gas into unobtanium but there’s enough wiggle room in chemistry so that depending on what else besides xenon is in xenonite we could imagine all the properties of this make-believe material without calling down the lightning of the gods of the periodic table.
So, I think that’s fair. If you only make up one crazy make-believe MacGuffin to allow for the action in your story then I won’t cry foul and demote the story to the depths of the fantasy dungeon. I mean, who could ask for more than that.
“Project Hail Mary” is an sf novel by Andy Weir. It’s currently finishing off a theater run as a motion picture made by Amazon (MGM). And in fact, this is Weir’s second book to be turned into a motion picture (the first one was “The Martian”).
Just to start with the most important question, I think this is an excellent book.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
My review will have spoilers but I think I’ll be cagey about some of the plot elements because they’re pretty important to the way the story unfolds for the reader and I think they shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of my plot synopsis.
The book’s protagonist is Ryland Grace; a biology PhD who now teaches Middle School science because a paper he wrote about the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the absence of water was severely criticized. As the story unfolds an autocratic European Space Agency administrator named Eva Stratta whose been given almost unlimited authority commandeers Ryland into a multinational science and engineering project that is studying a mysterious non-terrestrial organism that is absorbing an enormous amount of energy from the sun and threatens to throw the Earth into a cataclysmic ice age.
Ryland discovers that the lifeform (which he names astrophage) has a life cycle which sees it looping around between basking close to the sun in order to store up enormous energy traveling to Venus, reproducing in the atmosphere of Venus and then returning to the neighborhood of the sun. And it travels back and forth in this cycle at speeds approaching c (the speed of light). And the explanation for this capability is that astrophage can convert energy into matter and matter into energy. There’s some hand-waving about neutrino production creating matter/anti-matter annihilation but of course there’s nothing that makes any sense. Anyway, the astrophage is increasing its numbers asymptotically and within thirty years Earth will freeze and mankind will disappear.
And it is discovered that all of the stars in our neighborhood are also dimming because of astrophage. All except one Tau Ceti. So, a star ship will be built by the combined technical skills of humanity and staffed with a crew of three including a scientist trained on the current knowledge about astrophage and hopefully they will discover why Tau Ceti is immune to the dimming and use this to find a cure for our solar system. And the star ship is powered using astrophage as fuel. Well, actually the light that the astrophage produce for motion is the propellant pushing the ship through space. Unfortunately, in the short window they have to create the ship and breed the enormous amount of astrophage needed, they cannot make enough for a round trip. This is a suicide mission (thus the name “hail Mary”).
And in order to keep the crew from killing each other in the tight confines of the ship for four (relativistically speaking) years, they are in a coma state. When the ship reaches Tau Ceti, Ryland is awakened and doesn’t remember who he is or where he is or why. He discovers that aside from robotic presences he is the only living human aboard. His two crewmates have long ago died during their coma states.
Gradually Ryland’s memory returns and he realizes that he must carry out the mission unassisted by the deceased pilot and engineer. Slightly later on he realizes that another star ship is in his neighborhood and he discovers that the inhabitants of another local star system (40 Eridani) have also sent a mission to Tau Ceti to solve the problem of astrophage. The alien is a sort of five-legged giant crab with an outer shell of metallic minerals. His atmosphere is ammonia at twenty-nine atmospheres and 200°C and so Ryland cannot go into his ship but must allow the alien to come to the Hail Mary in a protective suit.
The remainder of the book is a journal of Ryland and Rocky (the name he gives the Eridian engineer who is the only surviving member of the 40 Eridani mission) learning how to understand each other and cooperate to combine their highly complementary skill sets to solve what should be an impossible problem; translating the resistance of the Tau Ceti system to astrophage into a practical solution for Earth’s sun and 40 Eridani. And after many setbacks and several acts of selfless friendship by both partners they overcome the challenges and solve the problems and save Earth and Erid (Ryland’s name for Rocky’s home world). Now Rocky’s ship has an enormous surplus of astrophage and he is able to provide Ryland with enough fuel for a return trip to Earth. But after they separate for their voyages home Ryland discovers that a flaw in a containment tank will mean that Rocky’s ship will be out of fuel and doomed. Ryland reverses course and rescues Rocky and returns him to Erid in the Hail Mary and must therefore abandon his own return to Earth. He is able to send the solution to Earth’s problem (another single cell lifeform that Ryland dubs Taumoeba that eats astrophage and can be inoculated into the atmosphere of Venus) in four robot ships that will return to Earth on their own. In the last scene of the book Ryland is living in a special enclosure on Erid that protects him from the atmosphere, temperature and pressure conditions that would kill him instantly. But he has his friend Rocky around to keep him company and he has returned to his former occupation as a school teacher to Eridian children.
Okay. This guy Weir doesn’t kid around when it comes to detailed scientific descriptions. He’s got two different artificial gravity mechanisms (centrifuge and continuous acceleration/deceleration travel) and he describes their successful and unsuccessful usage in the story. He goes into gory detail to show how his astrophage can be used in a stellar drive. He goes into gory detail to describe his efforts to get Taumoeba to “evolve” into a population that will survive the atmospheres containing nitrogen on Venus and the planet near 40 Eridani. He goes into gory detail to discuss his efforts to isolate and remediate the contamination of his fuel by Taumoeba. This guy love technobabble. But I guess most people reading science fiction love technobabble too so it’s a forgivable sin. The other thing I notice is that Weir writes characters that correspond to millennials. They’re much more touchy-feely and prone to virtue signal than I care for. In other words, he’s writing for a modern audience, not a caveman like me. In fact, even though she’s very much a girl-boss, the character I most closely relate to was the autocratic administrator, Eva Stratta. My verdict is this is a very inventive and entertaining science fiction story and well worth the reader’s time. I highly recommend it.
I’ve been reading Andy Weir’s book “Project Hail Mary” and I’ll finish it soon and put out my review (which will be quite favorable). But while working my way through it I was impressed by how the improbability of some of the “science” in a story doesn’t spoil the enjoyment garnered by its use. After all, the premise of the story requires that Earth send an interstellar mission twelve light years away in order to move the story forward. So, the “MacGuffin” has to be accepted to go forward with the story. But what’s the formula for inventing an acceptable MacGuffin?
I suppose there are several methods. The simplest is don’t explain anything. Figure out a way for the main character to be unaware of any of the “technical” details for the MacGuffin. Maybe he’s a completely non-technical individual; a grade school dropout or a literal caveman. Or the technology is owned by an alien race that we can’t interrogate.
A more common way is to build up some technology based on a breakthrough in physics and other sciences. And because it’s fictitious the main requirements and advantages of the explanation would be that it’s self-consistent and allows some very convenient short cuts in the plot. This is the avenue Weir goes down. His MacGuffin is both the problem and the solution to the problem. He has built up a scenario that creates an existential catastrophe but also provides a mechanism for solving the problem and also turning the danger into a potential boon.
And that’s what’s extremely clever about this plot he’s invented. It mimics the idea of the double-edged sword that some new discovery can be, for example, nuclear energy. That was something that both threatened human extinction and promised the solution to the energy crisis.
As much as the mechanism Weir invents for his MacGuffin is intensely improbable, still, once accepted as fact, the rest of the story follows logically and satisfyingly from this premise. He has this new “fact” introduced into the world and then spins that world around on it until he gets the wild ride that ensues.
So now he has interstellar travel at a respectable fraction of the speed of light, a reasonable excuse for an intelligent alien first encounter and throws that together with a likable protagonist who is swept along against his will by this cosmic catastrophe. What’s not to like?
But what I realize is that I’m going to have to up my game when I write my sequel. I’ve never fleshed out the rationale behind how Connors’ mining drone is able to do what it does. I just sort of waved my hands around and said “abracadabra!” Weir is careful to count up the zeros when he describes the amount of energy that his “astrophage” is able to store and discharge as the basis of his star drive. Sure, attributing a neutrino-based energy storage system to a one-celled animal living in the hard vacuum of space in the vicinity of a star is pure nonsense. But he does acknowledge the magnitude of the nonsense. And that does make it fun.
So, I’m a week in on the Kindle Unlimited program and I’ve got about a thousand pages sold. Now that’s like five books worth. Which is not much but the curve has been increasing for the last five days so I’ll keep an eye on this for a few weeks to see if it goes anywhere. If any of you guys currently uses Kindle Unlimited explain how it works. Do you read it on the website one page at a time or how does it work? It seems kind of clunky to me.
So, Camera Girl and I went to the Dunwich Spring Middle School Concert which includes both band and chorus sections at both the upper and lower levels. This is a remarkable experience because the range of accomplishment varies from fairly good to nonexistent. But realizing that the teacher has managed to get these children to even organize into an orchestra is almost inconceivable. The choral songs aren’t mostly to my taste. They tend to try to introduce a foreign language song that doesn’t translate to an American audience. One exception was Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight). The Tokens version is a favorite of mine so I was excited. But something went wrong with the arrangement. As is typical in these school choruses the ratio of girls to boys is seven to one. So, the deeper voices are always practically missing in the song. But Wimoweh famously has a towering falsetto section and of course all those girls should have been able to translate it into a powerful soprano part. But instead, they had the three boys with their barely audible tenor voices whispering through this part. Oh, the pain.
But the highlight of the evening was the band giving their rendition of the theme to “Jurassic Park.” And the kids did a serviceable job of John Williams’ Fanfare for the Common Dinosaur. But the funniest thing was a kid sitting behind me. He must have been three years old and he started exclaiming loudly, “Giraffic Park, Giraffic Park!!!” at the top of his lungs and all the parents in the front rows started laughing. But the Conductor/Music Teacher never missed a beat and her band performed the miracle of producing a recognizable version of the popular melody.
I’ve started reading “Project Hail Mary.” My oldest grandson has loaned me his copy and I’m treating it with kid gloves since I remember what it was like when I had a mint hardback copy of an sf favorite. I’m a hundred pages in and it’s interesting. It’s definitely a millennial book. There’s a difference in the voice. It’s a kindler, gentler voice. There’s much more emotion. Now the protagonist is a Middle School teacher so you can say this is just the consequence of this particular character. But the choice of the character is part of this younger generation of readers and writers. Well, the book is good so far. It’s inventive and well-paced and has an interesting manner of unfolding the story. It starts in the middle and flashes back to the beginning but one flash at a time. Weir has come up with an interesting twist on an interstellar drive. It dovetails with the crisis that is forcing the need for a trip to Tau Ceti. Now I don’t think it’s a particularly plausible mechanism but it is entertaining for sure.
So we’re in the thick of this mid-term election cycle here in Dunwich. And just as all over the country election holders that have strayed from what their party wants are being primaried out of their candidacies, so there have been several candidates who showed up at the Town Hall to take out papers to run against the First Selectmen.
Now this isn’t unprecedented. Every few years someone moves into town and after experiencing just how “difficult” conditions are in town government, decides to throw his hat in the ring. Now usually after seeing that First Selectman Cthulhu’s hat is thirty feet in diameter the incipient “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” type picks up his hat out of the ring and slinks back home. But this year’s Mr. Smith (specifically a fellow named Ned Parson) was made of sterner stuff. He paid his registration fee and showed up in front of Town Hall and challenged the First Selectman to a debate.
Cthulhu nodded his head and told his secretary to set up a public meeting on Sentinel Hill on the following Monday. Sentinel Hill is convenient for meetings involving the First Selectman because if the humans are standing on the top of the hill and Cthulhu stands at the base, his head is only slightly above their level. Also the acoustics are such that Cthulhu can usually hear mostly everything spoken by the humans. And this is important. Because if he can’t hear what’s being said, he tends to think he’s being disrespected and that usually ends poorly.
Last Monday it was cold and cloudy but there was a decent crowd, maybe fifty townspeople milling around the podium at the top of the hill. And on the podium Ned Parson was dressed as Uncle Sam including the beard. He was throwing buttons to the crowd that said “Be Led by Ned!!!” along with shooting off some confetti poppers. He seemed confident, almost jubilant. As the noon hour approached the First Selectman rumbled up to his station on the valley floor. His facial expression was as usual unreadable but his breathing seemed to be a little noisier than usual. There might also have been a certain grinding of his teeth audible but not very loudly.
At noon the Town Clerk climbed the podium and read the description of the event; “Debate for First Selectman Office.” She added that Ned Parson had one the coin toss and would speak first. Ned proceeded, “My fellow Dunwichians, I stand before you today prepared to finally convert this town from a weird dysfunctional outpost into a modern, progressive New England town. For too long you’ve all suffered under the inefficient, corrupt and depressing administration of my opponent. For too long you’ve been unable to get town services or even the comfort of knowing a constabulary stood ready during outbreaks of vampirism or lycanthropy to protect life and property. I have the support of the local surrounding towns and I will bring our standards up to those of our neighbors. I will not stand still. I will move forward and I will make a big splash in this little place.”
The Town Clerk thanked Ned and then asked the First Selectman for his rebuttal. Cthulhu reached down to the podium and closed his hand around Ned, winding up he threw a perfect strike. Ned splatted against the rock face of Mt Bishop leaving a sizable red stain. Cthulhu guffawed, “That little man was right, he made a big splash.”
In the 1960’s and ‘70’s the science fiction that seemed to be the most interesting was as much about inner space as outer space. And even space stories like “Dune” were as much about human social interaction as they were about technology. Altered consciousness and new social norms in stories like “Stranger in a Strange Land” were what was in the air. As a kid and young man, I was more interested in science (meaning star ships and time travel!) but now that I’m old and disillusioned by how messed up our government has become, I think the kind of speculative fiction I’m interested in now is social science.
I’ve always made fun of Plato’s Republic because listening to him construct straw men and then knock them over with arguments that don’t hold water seemed beyond ludicrous. But I think we’re somewhat back to where the Greeks were sometime around the time of the Peloponnesian War. We’ve managed to lose social cohesion and the institutions and methods we use for choosing leaders and making laws have completely failed us. It’s not hard to see that we’re not far away from a crack-up that could do horrendous damage to our economy and the lives of everyday people.
I think it’s probably time for speculative fiction writers to start taking a few swipes at either predicting the future or at least providing cautionary tales about it. And that’s what I’m thinking of concentrating on in some of the stories I’m outlining right now. I’m interested in imagining what kinds of new arrangements people can organize to make their lives better. For instance, when local, state or federal governments start failing to secure the basic requirements of safety from theft and bodily injury for the citizens they supposedly serve, private entities could step in to secure these services. And once these non-governmental corporations start branching out the current arrangements we’re used to could cease to exist in ad hoc areas of the country without any formal acknowledgement of the change. This is not that different from what happened in the later Roman Empire. When Gaul started slipping away to the Franks the authority of the “Caesar” over the “Legions” who were mostly Franks became almost farcical.
So, I need to think a little bit about what kinds of new social and economic arrangements might be interesting and novel in the “world” I’m imagining. I’ve poked some holes in the American Empire and now I want to see what kinds of new things might grow up inside these holes. So, I have a locus of power (Connors’ network of enterprises and human assets) and someone running it who thinks on a larger basis than just building up tech monopolies to monetize what’s left of the American people’s legacy capital. What I want to see is if I can come up with some believable innovations that would lead people to rearrange their allegiances and social and commercial actions in ways that build something new and better than what we’ve been stuck with for the last fifty years.
What I’m trying to decide is whether Connors will try to control several states under his umbrella without outwardly absorbing these political jurisdictions. After all, voting for the interests of the company you work for is nothing new. Remember “What’s good for GM is good for America.” So that’s what I’m working on. The problem is I’m making it up as I go along.
I was just reading about the second serious scandal concerning AI generated fiction being published by experts in the world of publishing. In the last scandal Hatchette bought a self-published book because the author managed to attract a very large number of readers on her own. After they republished the book, it was discovered that there was a lot of very obvious AI generated content in it.
In the present scandal a prestigious contest that accepts fiction from amateurs living in the countries of the British Commonwealth had three of the five winners flagged by readers as being AI generated by a capable software used for this function.
Here’s a sample of the text:
“Wilfred’s rum-shop leaned into the road like a rotten tooth. Inside, boards blackened by smoke and sweat, the air sweet with cane and forgetting. Coins meant for rice or kerosene slid across the counter and came back white rum hot as apology. One drink opened the chest, two turned fear into courage’s cheap cousin, three steadied the hand enough to write the future in invisible ink.”
Okay, what the hell does “white rum hot as apology” mean? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s AI slop that it thinks sounds “poetic.”
Now five “Experts” picked this gibberish and declared it worthy of a prestigious award. Why? Well, the only thing I notice that both scandals include are woke publishing “experts” selecting the work of minority writers without bothering to see if it’s any good or even written by human beings.
The most hilarious aspect of the latest scandal is that the contest judges refuse to admit that they’ve been made to look like fools and the stories are still up on their site as the winners.
I watched a YouTube video by a young woman who considers herself a seasoned editor and although she agrees that the text is extremely unlikely not to be AI slop she does add the obligatory warning that we should remember that minority writers must not be singled out as more highly suspect just because they always seem to be the ones whose work slips through the editors who are afraid of being called racists if they look too closely at their work and find it’s not very good.
I guess it’s not enough that the publishing world gives precedence to any writer who isn’t a straight white man. Now they add robots as long as they’re not straight white male robots or at least not working under one of their names. Well, be that as it may, today I officially began work on the sequel to my book. I began the outline by writing out a bunch of plot lines to choose between.
Plot Threads
Update on Bogey and his life
Update on Grace and her boys
President Chastain’s crises
Constitutional Convention
Seceding States
Potential Military Insurrection
Personal Problems (health)
Relations with Connors’ Group
Connors’ crises
Disaffected Groups with His Organization
Relations with federal and state officials
Connors’ indecision and doubts
Disagreements with Cutter and others
Personal Problems (Grace, Bogey)
America’s Crisis of Instability
World’s Crisis of Instability
Technical Instability
So that’s a lot of stuff. I’m not sure all of these will be included but it’s always best to start with the kitchen sink and pare it back. Well, take that Chat GPT.
My experience with PKD through The Man In The High Castle is similar. It is beautiful prose and a fascinating idea but the sheer unpleasantness of the reading experience is off-putting. This is not to say I totally hate Dystopias. I think one of the most beautiful pieces of Science fiction (let alone Dystopias) is Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Liebowitz . With it’s Sarcastic Humor, and it’s crazy story that interweaves (Spoiler to a 60+ year old story the Wandering Jew wanders through all three sections and it MAKES SENSE) all sorts of mythology and Catholic and Christian trivia into a very odd resolution it is very compelling. I reread it, but not too often, it tears at the soul. Both PKD and Walter Miller (who later commits suicide likely due to PTSD from being a B-17 gunner in WWII in the raids on Dresden) were clearly troubled men. They are also very skilled writers. Their writing, to some degree, drags you into their madness, and this can be a very uncomfortable place to go. I do not find The Man in the High Castle compelling enough to experience the discomfort where A Canticle For Liebowitz seems to ultimately yield some release,
So, I wrote that review last night about “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” And afterwards, I was surprised at just how negative my review was. I went to great lengths to stress that I thought it was a well written story. But I couldn’t disguise how little I liked the reading experience. I characterized the problem as being a matter of story type. It was an extreme example of dystopia where all the characters reflected a dismal outlook and nothing happy or positive intruded on the gloom.
And that got me thinking. Maybe my dislike of this genre was short-sighted. Possibly I was shutting myself off from treasures that lurked around every corner. And in agreement with that idea, I remembered how I had never been able to get myself to finish 1984. I skimmed through it several times but always got bogged down by just how depressing and irritating I found all the characters and plot.
So apparently, I am a literary lightweight. My guess is that I read fiction for enjoyment. And apparently, I don’t enjoy being depressed. That must explain why I gravitate toward action/adventure and scientific razzmatazz. I like reading stories where things happen and even if the bad guys are winning the good guys don’t roll over and play dead. Even better, I like it when the good guys are also the smart guys and win in the end. But either way I want there to be someone I can empathize with. And no one can empathize with someone whose highest aspiration is to own a sheep (living or mechanical) and have it live on the roof of his apartment building. PKD’s world is made up of mental cases of one type or another and while you may pity some crazy people, they’re really no fun to read about. Unless they’re somehow funny. And these people weren’t.
Maybe that makes me shallow but that’s where I stand. If I was writing 1984, I’d have an underground that did more than just exist as a shadow. I’d have them organize and expand and then one day rampage through the politburo and have Big Brother’s head nailed to the highest flag pole in the capitol. Or even if they fail, I’d have them go down fighting, not meekly cower under their beds waiting for the thought police to drag them off to the dungeon.
But I do wonder whether that puts me in the majority or the minority. Possibly I’m in the majority among my age group but in the minority among the current cohort of readers. So, I’m very interested in how the rest of you out there come down on this question. Are dystopias fun or not? And I’m talking about the real dreary, hopeless worlds. No shreds of joy or hope. Just misery and dysfunction as far as the eye can see. Tell me what you think and list a few examples of the various levels of joyless horror and how you would characterize the experience.