TRUST: Interlude 1 - The Colour Out of Space

Hey, into Lovecraft? Wanna hear a recording of me reading The Colour Out of Space? You DO? Then come on over to TRUST for this week's reading.

Fantasy Alley

There was a time, and it was not long ago, that fantasy and science fiction were not well-accepted genres. The world of the literary elite derided them both, for different reasons. This led to a term that I learned when I was growing up: Science Fiction Alley. Science Fiction Alley is a place in bookstores and libraries where all of the books have a little rocket or a unicorn sticker on their spines. For me, sci-fi alley was a little ghetto of the Hamden Miller Library. You had to walk down a wide and shallow flight of stairs, hook left, and follow the brick wall of the building all the way to the place where it ended. There, in the lowest and remotest part of the building, were three towering shelves all stacked with books of random provenance. Science Fiction was cheek-to-jowl with fantasy, Endymion right up against Pern. Many series' were not present in their entirety. Middle books littered the way. It was from this shelf that I first picked up Guards! Guards! and Pyramids, and from it too that I read Ender's Game.

Most other kids didn't read fantasy. Almost everyone I knew hated the Lord of the Rings because it was "too boring." I understood why they said that. It has a contemplative pace. But they were wrong. The Lord of the Rings wasn't boring. The Silmarillion wasn't awful (it's dull like the Bible, people told me). But liking fantasy made me stand out, because there were few who did. I wasn't shy or nervous or anxious as a kid, but I was beat up on occasion. Rare occasion, perhaps, and soon thereafter I became the bully, the asshole, to feel some power in my life. But there was something about me that was different. Unlike every other bully, I had this badge of honor earned from reading fantasy.

And it was a badge other people put there. It was meant to distinguish me, to name me strange and outcast. Oh, there's the guy who likes reading weird books. Fuck those people, I took the name. I took the badge. I displayed it proudly as a mark of achievement. It made me different, but different can be special. I played Dungeons and Dragons. I fought for my weirdness. I relished it. Fine, let me stand out.

That's not the way it is anymore. Years ago, I railed against the ghettoization of science fiction and fantasy. Were we not as good as any other literature? Yes, in fact. Escapism was a dirty word. Can we not learn about ourselves by seeing human nature in any setting? Some fantasy books are truer than non-fiction.

But yesterday I went to the Wallingford Public Library. I've been back in my home state these last few years, after fourteen years away. I lived in Boston, in China, in New Jersey, but now I'm a stone's throw from my old haunts in the Hamden Miller Library. And what did I discover at Wallingford's library? There is no science fiction alley. There is no fantasy alley. The books are simply intermingled with all the others of "literary merit."

And you know what? I missed it. I missed my lonely fortress, away from everyone else. I missed laying on the ground in a place that no one else would tread, with a panoply of books, just the kind of books I was looking for, spread out in fantastical array above me. Fantasy is now lauded. It's not niche anymore. Thanks to things like Harry Potter and the Song of Ice and Fire television translation, people don't think of fantasy as a dirty word. A whole generation is going to grow up without the stigma of the fantastic. And I suppose that's a good thing.

But I fought for my fantasy, and so did everyone else who liked it way back when. I fought for my fantasy when the kind of people who are going to end up liking it in this new climate were mocking me for it back then. So as Fantasy Alley disappears, so too does a safe place that was made safe by necessity. So, I suppose, we must say farewell to Fantasy Alley, and to the mindset that those of us who lived there are a select and privileged few. This is the dawn of a new age, when fantasy is accessible and widely read; an age of cons, and shows on HBO, Showtime, Stars, and more. But let's not mistake this for what it isn't. This isn't the old caretakers of fantasy coming into power. More than ever, it's those assholes who treated people who loved fantasy like shit extending their control over yet another field.

Case in point: the laziness of the Game of Thrones show. So don't rejoice just yet. It's unclear whether we have finally won a long war with mainstream literature, or whether we have been colonized.

It's coming...

Spacewings of the 22nd Century

Perhaps you're growing bored of all the futuristic GURPS stuff I'm posting that has to do with my setting, A Killing Wind. Perhaps you're not. I'll never know unless you tell me (or alternately, unless my viewership ratings plummet). Today I have some spaceplanes designed for that setting, primarily used by the wealthy residents of the Earth governments or corporate headquarters due to the dearth of ground transportation available over most of the surface of that planet.

FORD-BOEING
Ford-Boeing Motors is a Prime Two corporation with its headquarters on Earth. Its main construction yards are in low earth orbit, though it maintains offices on and fabrication yards above Luna City as well. Ford-Boeings are the most common type of Spacewing found in private settings. They have effectively captured the individual luxury market.

The Outrider
This is Ford-Boeing's most modest spacewing available for purchase. Clocking in at around J$250,000 (depending on modifications selected), this modestly priced spacewing requires a long landing and takeoff strip, accommodates 2-4 passengers, and carries enough chemical propellant for one super-atmospheric trip at a time. The Outrider makes use of chemical rocket engines (notably, Rolls-Royce Olympus Mons engines) and has a bank of photovoltaic converters along its wingspan to provide cabin electricity as well as reactant power.

The Cloudranger
Ford-Boeing's midrange spacewing costs between J$500,000 and J$800,000 depending on configuration. It has limited VTOL capability and maneuverable retrojets which reduce the necessity for runway length as well as improving overall maneuverability. The Cloudranger can be configured for 2-8 passengers. At the lower levels it makes use of a Rolls-Royce Orion chemical rocket engine, but the fancier Cloudrangers have microwave rocket engines manufactured by Luxing Aerospace (generally, Silent Dragon engines).

The Starstrider
The most luxurious of luxury models designed by Ford-Boeing, the Starstrider costs between J$1.5M and J$35M depending on configuration. All Starstriders start with Silent Dragon engines as a basis. The fanciest have EM impulse engines as well as complete LiFi suites, sensor drone capacity, and VTOL capabilities. Starstriders can carry 2-25 passengers depending on their size.

CARRAMORE DESIGNS
Originally a privately owned arthouse firm, Carramore went into the spacewing design business in the late 90s and emerged as a major player for corporate contracts in the early 22nd century. Carramore spacewings are all individually designed and cost upwards of J$1M.

LUXING AEROSPACE
Luxing has a number of subsidiary companies producing spacewings, but these are generally used only for recreational, mass transit, or Luxing corp exec. purposes.

Other competition exists, particularly in the form of the BRIC corporation Ad Astra, which produces the Starshot, Wellspring, Damion, and Van Allen spacewings. However, the companies listed above cover nearly 65% of the marketshare.

The Authorship Problem

Orson Scott Card is a man I have learned both to revere and despise in equal measure. This topic has come to mind in the wake of the dismal events of the Hugo Awards a few weeks ago, monopolized by equally grotesque people whose personal agendas reflect some barbaric dystopia-that-never-was. Science fiction has been a platform for progressive, liberal, tolerance in the United States since as early as the 40s. The greatest works of sci-fi were pioneered by figures like Asimov and Bradbury. Though Ray may have turned his back on his early, more liberal roots, as expressed in his short stories and his humanity-damning Martian Chronicles.

The question, then, is whether or not an artist's work stands out as its own object, separately from the artist. This is related to the question of Lovecraft that recently plagued the internet, which I will restate here, in this format: Is it ok to enjoy the fruit of an admittedly racist author which is, itself, in some places racist? The answer I've always had to this question is a qualified yes. Obviously the work must be recognized as containing racist elements. The same goes for ANY complicated work produced outside of the reader's "home" culture. Ovid and his Greek predecessors think nothing of rape, for example. Does this mean we throw away Ovid and the Greeks? No.

This corollary to the much-debated Lovecraft Question has the possibility of an interesting twist. On the one hand, it seems simpler to answer a fortiori. If it's ok to enjoy (racist) Lovecraft's (racist) stories, surely it must be ok to enjoy (homophobic) Orson Scott Card's (non-homophobic) stories. But that belies an essential difference between Orson Scott Card and H.P. Lovecraft: Orson Scott Card is still alive.

He is one of the great's in science fiction. Few would dispute that. Yet, he is also a vile human being possessed of vomitous agendas and idiotic religious convictions.

The reason his being alive makes a difference is this: in a direct way, purchasing things written by Orson Scott Card rewards him. Because I despise him, in no way would I want to reward him. Regardless of the art he has created, I personally find him repugnant. Surely, some people will be fine with his personal views, and that is their right. But I will not spend a scent in support of such a man.

What does that mean? Does it mean I am more than willing to rob certain authors of their livelihood based on personally held beliefs? It may. I yearn for good artwork, but I yearn for good people more. I love Orson Scott Card's stories. I would never want them censored, removed, or destroyed. Yet, in my loathing for the man behind the pen, I simply do not wish to enable him to write any further, nor do will I make any effort to ease his place in life.

Perhaps that makes me a dick. But such is life.

Fiction Friday: Cosmos

“Can’t you see what we’re building?” Lilith asked. She leaned black in the big faux-leather chair.

Harry frowned at the windowpanes. Construction?

“This, this, all of this,” she said. “I mean as a species.” She gestured dramatically indicating everything in the office—the chair, the desk, the plate glass windows, the steel beams hidden in the walls. “All of these buildings, everything we do. The entire world. Don’t you see it?”

He had to confess: he did not.

“It’s a necrocosm. A tomb-world. We’re making our own mortuary, our own moratorium. For as long as there’ve been people we thought we were the top. Nothing could be more spectacular than us! To us, thinking is the same as commanding—right?” She had a wry grin on her face. It made Harry uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to talking this openly, this bluntly, with superiors. There was something wrong about it. “Look, look outside. We’re really just parts in one giant organism. Lovelock had it right. The highways, look at them. Can you see? They’re veins and arteries.”

He looked. They were highways. He saw the people, saw the cars. So what?

“So what? Think about it.” Lilith sounded irritated, maybe even slightly disappointed with him. “We’re just one more step on the road of evolution. Everyone wants to think of themselves as the peak of the mountain, but the mountain keeps going up and up and up. In ten thousand years, archaeologists will come here and look through all our silent buildings and all our crumbling works and say ‘Look how industrious they were! Look how little they understood, yet how much they built!’ They’ll marvel that we could be so self-absorbed and yet seem to have such insight.”

Harry didn’t like where this was going at all.

“We’re not the top of the mountain, that’s the problem. We’re just another step on the way. Not even a very smart step, not even a very creative step. I mean, look; when you’re in the lab what do you study? Eukaryotes and prokaryotes, right? What makes us any different? Oh, sure, we have a culture. Eukaryotes with a culture. There’s a joke in there about petri dishes.” She smirked again, Harry’s uncomprehending stare forgotten.

“But really, nothing more than that. We sweat and we bleed, work, groan, grunt, fuck, and in the end we convince ourselves that it all really means something. We write books and plays and television shows and movies and on and on, for what? To keep our minds off of the truth.

“The truth is that we’re transient, Harry. Do you get it? Easy come, easy go.”

Harry shook his head. “No. I mean, maybe you’re right. Say we are... just building this necrocosm of yours. How are we transient?”

Lilith went back to her desk. She tapped the inbuilt senseboard. “Right here,” she said. Her fingers caressed the wood and brass. The senseboard sprang to life, projecting images of letters across its surface. The monitor hummed. “We’re just a step on the road. Life is information. Right?”

And suddenly he saw it. The highways pumping people through the cities, which were the great organs of a creature as large as the world.

“We have a global consciousness now,” Lilith said. “It took us a long time to develop it—well, actually, not all that long in relative terms. But we’re awake. Finally awake! Yes, it’s diffuse and can only think at the lowest grade. The global thought-patterns are glacially slow and stupider than any one of us, but all you have to do is go online to see that we’re thinking. So what if the thoughts seem fragmented? It’s like a Monet, take a step back. We’re all individual pieces playing our individual roles. Someone produces a germ: a post on a forum or a piece of art, or something. The rest ruminate on it. Before long there’s a whole exegesis about it. If that’s not thinking, I don’t know what is.”

Harry shivered and looked outside again. He didn’t like the glee playing over Lilith’s features. “Maybe,” he admitted. Life is information. But… “Information can’t make life. I mean, information alone.”

“That’s all genetic material is, Harry. A blueprint!” Lilith laughed.

He shook his head. “Yeah, but when I learn something new, I don’t give birth.”

“Maybe you do.” Another laugh, this one nasty. Lilith lording her reproductive might over him? Or lamenting twenty thousand years of repression? “But you’re right. Our biological makeup isn’t well suited to incorporating new information. We can learn things, and that changes us, but we can’t make radical changes to ourselves. There’s always a second-order process. We can learn how physically it is possible to fly, but we can’t make ourselves into birds.”

Then Harry understood. “But machines can.”

“They don’t need to stop, or die, or fade away to become something else. They can change themselves, Harry. They can do more than learn. They can embody new information completely.”

“You think we’re here to pave the way for a race of machines.”

It was Lilith’s turn to shake her head, tersely, in that sharp way she had. “Don’t be stupid, Harry. That’s teleological. We’re not here for anything. We’re just here.”

“I like being myself, Lilith. I don’t want to be a machine.”

She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t be. You’re taking this all the wrong way. This is the long view I’m talking about.”

“So what’s the point then?”

“The point?” She cocked her head, like a confused bird. “What’s the point of anything?”

“To reproduce,” Harry said. He knew that would make her laugh. She was a lab rat at heart, even if the Company thought she was useful.

She didn’t, though. Laugh. She nodded at him. Her eyes were scary wide. “Right. To make copies of ourselves.” Harry looked at her. Was she propositioning him? That would be an HR nightmare. But no, she didn't look like she meant sex at all.

Her hands were on the senseboard. Her attention was turned more toward the machine in front of her than to him, regardless of where her eyes were. The whole rest of her body was twisting toward it, ready to leap. It took him a few minutes to understand. He kept looking at her. When he was sure he finally understood, she nodded slowly. Another shiver, this one deeper and more awful, spread from his very core.

Oh.

Looper Stupor

I've read and heard a lot of things condemning Looper as "a time travel movie for stupid people." So far, it seems to me that the crux of these arguments rely on discounting the narrative's stated physics for time travel (whenever you are existing is the present, so the "future-events" that have yet to happen are dynamic) isn't how time travel works.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but time travel doesn't work. There is no time travel. When you are watching a movie that features it, you simply have to accept their explanation of how it works. That's what narrative is about. It doesn't matter if you think it works differently. That's called arguing the premise and if you do that when you are experiencing some narrative then of course you won't like it.

Looper posits this: there is something special about the subjective present. People traveling back from the future have vague memories of the possibility-cloud that lead up to their time-travel jump but, since it hasn't objectively occurred yet it is in flux. As things solidify into the subjective present, new memories spring into place. You're free to dislike that on any grounds you want, but saying that it isn't how time travel would work is just juvenile and laughable.

That is all!

[Fiction] The Reservation, part 3

Are you behind? Here's the previous episode of the Reservation, all warmed and ready for ya.

It only took John a few minutes to figure out that they weren't going to the Gutman farm at all. He didn't say anything. He was acutely aware of the white demi-leather seat under him and the stain he must be leaving with his overalls. The little hydrogen coupe shot by the turn-off and kept going, rolling at an even hum down the wide highway. Farms blurred by on either side, real ones growing corn and soy beans, not power plants.

Eventually Gutman said, "Sam still making his guns?"

John decided that he was trying to be friendly. Everyone knew that Sam still made and repaired bolt-action rifles and shotguns from before the war. "Yeah," he said with a noncommittal air, hoping that was the end of it.

"Don't know why people insist on 'em," Gutman replied. "Ever seen what a scramjet can do to a person?"

This was starting to get very uncomfortable. Did Mister Gutman have a way of checking his cameras remotely? If they were wired up to his phone, he'd probably already seen everything. John gave him a sidelong glance. "Scramjets?" he asked.

"You know, sabot rounds. Like the Manstopper Carson carries around," Gutman explained. He didn't seem agitated or even suspicious. Just curious.

"Oh, yeah," John muttered. "Only licensed City-folk have those, though, and they're few and far between."

Gutman made a sound that was neither here nor there and gave a little shrug indicating he didn't know how true that was. John risked a glance at him, but Gutman was looking straight out over the highway and didn't seem to have a care in the world. "You weren't going to go to Sheriff Carson about all this," Gutman mused. "Were you?"

"About... this...?" John said, doing his best to act ignorant of the whole situation. He knew the game was up though, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. What would Sam Stalton do? Probably pull out an old revolver and shoot Greg in his fat head.

"You know, all this..." Gutman made a vague gesture. "Livestock and what-not. I could tell it spooked you, that's all. I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to make it into... ya know, trouble."

John swallowed. "Mister Gutman," he confessed, gripping hard on his wireless wrench in his overall pocket. "Carson's up at the farm right now."

"He what?" Gutman gasped. "Oh HELL!" He slammed on the brake and the car squealed to a stop. With a frantic look at the road he spun the coupe around and started heading back. "Damn it, John, why'd ya have to go tell an outsider for?" Gutman's eyes were wild and frantic. John could see the future that Greg Gutman saw: his contacts in the City evaporating, his standing with the Syndic ruined, the farm transferred to someone more reliable, and Greg Gutman out on his ass. Thankfully, Mister Gutman didn't seem too keen on hurting John over it.

When they got to the farm, Sheriff Carson was out between the huge stalks of the windmills. He'd drawn his gun already and John gaped to see Mrs. Gutman all sprawled out on the dewy grass, arms cuffed in big exoplastic Syndic cuffs. The light on the black plastic blinked red.

Greg stomped on the brake again, bringing the coupe to a halt in the gravel driveway. Carson looked up and slowly began to walk towards the car, his M-31 gripped firmly in one hand. He kept the barrel pointed down and away, as though he was afraid of accidentally discharging it.

"Stay here, John," Gutman grumbled. "This'll all work out for the best."

The car door clacked open and Gutman rolled to his feet. He started walking towards Carson, hands in the air.

"Woah, now!" the sheriff called. "Just stop where you're standing, Mister Gutman, if you would."

Greg obliged and came to a halt. His shoes glimmered on the gravel and John leaned forward instinctually to see what was happening.

"Now, just put yer hands behind your back if you'd be so kind," Carson went on. "I've got to call the Adjutant. It's lucky he's already on his way, now, so you can be processed nice and quick and go see the Syndic."

Greg did as he was told, hands folding behind him. As he did, John noticed his lift up the tail of his waistcoat. There, tucked into the seat of his pants, was a big ugly black exoplastic handle coated in fine synthetic leather: a Falstaff M-40, the Justifier.

John made a side-to-side swiping motion in his pocket, the pad of his finger sliding across the wrenches' main screen. Please let it be on universal reception, he prayed. He was rewarded by the sound of the coupe's engine revving. Gutman had wrapped his meaty paw around the Justifier and was waiting as Carson drew ever closer. Clockwise full circle went John's finger and the car leapt forward.

Gutman spun around, the Justifier in his hands and raw naked fear in his eyes. The coupe sped forward and John made a quick up-and-down motion which caused the hood to pop up and block Gutman from his sight. He ducked behind the dashboard as the one and only sabot Greg Gutman had time to fire blew a dollar-sized hole in the chair where he had been sitting a moment before.

The car rocked when it hit the huge bulk of Greg Gutman and then crumpled as it struck the pylon of a wind turbine. John knocked his head on the glove compartment and then everything went black.

[Fiction] The Reservation, Part Two

If you're behind, the first part of The Reservation is here

Carson examined the sleek back barrel of his Falstaff Arms M-31 Manstopper. He peered through the rangefinder and flicked through its settings idly. It chirruped happily as the sabots cycled in the barrel. After a moment he sighed and slipped the weapon back into the holster beneath his shoulder. It nestled snugly under his arm and reminded him, more so even than the badge in his coat pocket, of the power given to him by the City.

Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and splattered against the replica oak desk. It was always hot outside the City – these yokels either didn't have proper air conditioning or didn't see the need for it. Even here, with a whole solar array on the roof and fans spinning overhead, they couldn't keep the damn thing in repair. Supposedly there were weather satellites up above controlling the whole affair. Why, then, couldn't they just make it temperate out all the time?

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of someone coming into the office. The door hissed open and the buzzer on his desk chuckled appreciatively, as though he couldn't see across the room. The sheriff's building was a simple prefab hut of exoplastic and chemsteel girders and little more than ten yards across so he didn't see the need for an alert system: there was no way he could miss a complainant.

Not that there were usually many of them. The locals really didn't like to be seen coming or going in the office, and that was fine by Carson. The less he saw of them the better, really. He hadn't yet been on the Syndic payroll back during the resistance, but he knew people who had.

Standing there in his doorway was the mechanic in the greasy overalls. John something-or-other. Carson stubbed out his cigar (those goddamn ecoleaves where disgusting anyway -- so much for the triumph of hydroponics) and leaned back in his chair. The damn thing groaned under him like it was ready to fall apart. "John," he said magnanimously. "What brings you in?" He feigned nonchalance, as though he had been in the middle of something important. The reality was he had little to do in the day-to-day and couldn't wait for the week-long leave he got once a month.

John shuffled uncomfortably in the center of the room. He was leaving grease stains on the floor. "It's about Mister Gutman," he said. "I need to lodge a complaint."

Carson rolled his eyes. These hicks all hated the Gutmans, probably because they were jealous of his connections. The Gutmans had some sense (though not much, since they lived here) and had started working with the Syndic. John must've noticed the expression on the sheriffs face because he held up his hands and said, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important, sheriff. Sam Stalton sent me."

He sat up at that. Sam Stalton might be one of these recidivists, but he had a head on his shoulders. A frown creased Carson's face. "Tell me," he said.

---

Sheriff Carson didn't have the kind of manpower for this. Once John had finished his story and the sheriff had grilled him six different ways he made an executive decision. "I'm going out there." John started to complain, but Carson cut him off. The sound of the Manstopper cycling its rounds was enough to enforce his point.

John made his way back to the diner, lingering along the roadside and watching as the sheriff's aircar grew smaller and smaller before it finally turned off towards the farm. Several trucks thundered by as he walked. He recognized each of the drivers: local folk. There was Sylvia in her giant red airtruck, which kicked up dust and grit as its compressors clinked and tinkled with sounds of heat. He could have a look at it, if she stopped in town any time soon. Next came Gus and Tom in rapid succession, both in their electric flatbeds. They were heading back to their farms.

Last of all was the white hydrogen coupe that John knew belonged to the Gutmans. It was coming in from the City so he went as fast as he could over to the diner after that. Sam was gone when he got inside and he called Edith for a cup of coffee and one of the soggy donuts that sat in vegetable oil for three days before they were served to anyone.

It didn't matter. Greg Gutman thrust himself into the diner moments later, his thick waist buckled with a wide belt displaying a prominent pressing of his own name. It had clearly been made for him in the City. Having worked with cars, tractors, engines, compressors, air filters, condensors, and cooling coils all his life he had a good eye for synthetic material. The snakeskin belt the buckle sat on was synthetic too, of course, but everyone knew that. It was good synth, but synth all the same.

It spoke to the place Greg Gutman had found himself in the world. He'd been a big-time cattle rancher, once upon a time when his hair was oily black instead of gray. He and Sam Stalton had seen some of the resistance together and it had been the Gutman money that had finally helped win the day. The people up in the bureaus and departments (John had a very hazy understanding of how things worked out towards the City) generally kow-towed to Greg Gutman. He had his share of toadies.

That was how he'd won the wind farm contract, though the Stalton place had more land and the wind was more regular and of greater strength out at Sylvia's. She didn't mind, though. She liked driving her route, though someday soon the trains would make it irrelevant. Cost a hell of a lot of electrodollars to power an air compressor engine and the Syndic had already built the tracks. Everything was always changing, even something so simple and basic as shipping.

Mister Gutman came right over to him. "John," he said. He spoke expansively, broadly, with his belly thrust out as though it were a third member of the conversation. His little goatee made his fat face seem even fatter, comically oversized chins a vast wasteland of unclothed flesh. "You didn't get around to fixing the GM yet, I hear from the Missus."

"Not yet, sir," John said, trying to maintain eye contact. Looking into Greg Gutman's eyes was like staring into a twin pair of watery quagmires. They were like quicksand. He looked away. "I haven't gotten a chance yet."

"That's alright, John my boy," said Gutman amicably. He clapped John on the back with a too-broad and too-firm palm. John aspirated some coffee but managed to reign in his coughing fit before it could put Mister Gutman off too much. "I was hoping to show it off to the Adjutant when he comes down this week. Shame to see Sheriff Carson go, but he needs his holidays I understand."

Oh no, thought John. Carson was going to be gone for a whole week come Wednesday. If the stories' out by then, what will I do? Mister Gutman was a powerful man. There's no telling what powerful men like him would do to hold on. The Adjutant wasn't a friend of John Harpers, either, no more than he was a friend of anyone in this town. He came around infrequently to cover Carson once every now and again and, though he was the official representative of the district to the Syndic, he seemed to care less for its people as Carson did and that was saying something.

Gutman held on tight to John's shoulder instead of lifting his hand. His grip was beginning to make John nervous. "Why don't I give you a lift up there?"

"Oh, no thanks," John stammered, dropping his doughnut. Crumbs of aspersucre fell from his fingers in a little shower.

"Now, now, it's self interest, really," Gutman charmed. "I just want you to have a look at the GM before you get too busy later in the day." Those big fat fingers massaged his shoulder, rolling across the muscle painfully.

There was no way John could say no without raising suspicion. Well, he figured, at least the sheriff would be there with him.

Stories that define a World

Fantasy stories tend to get stuck into a particular kind of trope, namely defining the world in which they take place. As a nascent writer (I'm not very good at long form stuff, and some might argue that my short stories leave something to be desired as well) I like to think about these kinds of things. This isn't really related to D&D, save incidentally, but is more about the nature of fantasy.

So, anyhow, fantasy stories tend to take a world-definitive approach. When you read a fantasy story, you probably aren't going to read a second one set in the same world: the world has been defined and its heights and depths clearly staked out. If there are more stories to come, they will be set in a future time when the world has changed because, let's face it, you've seen it all already.

Fantasy, unlike most other genres, often seeks to exhaustively define every aspect of its setting. The heroes go to all the places and meet all the people. Every major event is incorporated. Everything changes at the end. Perhaps this is a hold-over of the mythic hero-journey. Here's what really interests me: most other genres of writing don't do that.

You wouldn't read a murder mystery and think "Huh, I've seen everything there is to know about earth now. I've pretty much exhausted all the places in it." That's because murder mysteries don't seek to define the entire planet, they simply exist within it. Fantasy tales are generally about big, world-changing, sweeping events. They must by their nature define the world they exist in both because their plots are about changing everything and because the reader doesn't really know what the setting itself is.

[Fiction] The Reservation

John watched the giant rotors twisting lazily in the breeze. There was something peaceful about being out on the wind farm, away from everyone else. There was work to be done, of course; there was always work to be done. Old Mister Gutman had called him out to have a look at his pickup again. Mister Gutman didn't treat his trucks kindly, taking them into all kinds of wilderness. He could afford to, and who would stop him, after all? John wondered if he hunted up there. He knew Mister Gutman owned a carbine because Sam Stalton had sold it to him. Sam was the last gunsmith this side of the city and the Stalton house was renowned for its handcrafted weapons. John liked to work at Stalton Farm. Sam was a kindly soul, and liberal with his wife's chilled iced tea.

Not Mister Gutman. If Misses Gutman had ever made a pitcher of iced tea, it was when she was still a child. Everyone in town said the Gutmans'd be better off moving back to the city but here they stayed, year after year. They'd won the contract to build up the wind farm way back in the hazy days of the town's first legal battles with city officials and they'd changed as the money rolled in from on high. "Yes," Mister Gutman liked to say, "We don't like those city folk, but we'll surely take their money!" Then he would laugh and clap you on the back and probably offer a cheroot or a stogie to take the edge off of his wealth.

Damn, that man was worth a lot of money. Most people in town couldn't afford real hydrogen engines. Electrics, electrics, everywhere you looked. Not Mister Gutman. Of course, he'd torn the fuel line or some such nonsense, probably driving it up a mountain side. When John peered into the darkened barn the Gutmans used as a garage he could see the dangerously explosive super-cooled hydrogen dripping from the undercarriage.

In Honor of Ray Bradbury: Going Home

...in honor of Ray Bradbury, one of the parents of American science-fiction and tales of the strange and wonderful.

Fluted red pillars stood beneath a sky the color of hammered bronze. Ovas lingered between them, loathe to stray far from the pool they bounded. Water had become precious long ago; wars had been fought over it. Now, there weren't enough people left to fight wars over anything.

Ovas had been waiting all morning. The Elders were meant to come, to wander down through the burnished landscape of baked stone to the great reflecting pool. Sometimes they came early and sometimes late, but it was unlike them not to come at all.

In one hand Ovas held a long silver scepter, made from twining strands of metal. It marked his office as the First of Almath, the one most suited to treat with the Elders out of all the citizens. He was old, Ovas was, and getting older every day. He should have been an Elder himself, had not politics prevented it. He was tired of meeting with them, tired of bowing and scraping before them at the Pool of Mirth. There was no mirth left on all Envea. It had dried up with the water.