#442 Genesis to Revelation- Peter Plate

#442 Genesis to Revelation- Peter Plate

This is another short story from the San Francisco Noir collection. It’s Christmas Eve and a surprisingly sweltering ninety-six degrees on Market Street. Slatts Calhoun, three days released from San Quentin Prison in on the streets looking for trouble. He’s dressed as Santa Clause, and he’s packing a .357.

He forces his way into a medical marijuana shop, and robs the register.  It was almost a clean getaway but the police got there faster than he thought. So much for Santa.

“The Gods of crime were not smiling on Market that afternoon.”

Rating: 6-6-5-6 Total= 23

#421 The Prison- Domenic Stansberry

#421 The Prison- Domenic Stansberry

Jojo was back from the war, everything had changed. North Beach was still the old neighborhood, but his father wasn’t there any more. His father used to be a respected newspaper man, ran a local Italian weekly. At the start of the war, he was brought before a hearing and sent to an interment camp.

Now Jojo is caught between San Francisco and Reno where his father is. He won’t return, he has been shamed publically and his pride will not allow him to come back. Jojo resents his whole neighborhood for allowing this to happen to his family while he was serving his country.

All this happens as they watch Alcatraz burn in the failed prisoner revolt of 1946.

Notable Passage: “I hadn’t planned to be here, but here I was. There are things you don’t escape. In the dark.

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#159 Dream Cargoes- J.G. Ballard

#159 Dream Cargoes- J.G. Ballard

This is an interesting work of speculative fiction. What if a cargo ship of dangerous chemicals leaks into the ocean and creates a chemical reaction, a perfect cocktail akin to the primordial ooze of early creation on earth?

Johnson, a hapless seaman had been duped into joining a mission to illegally dump Organo-Phosphates into the ocean. It was supposed to be a quick trip, but once the word of their existence got out there was nowhere to set port. Three years later they were still cruising around the Carribean looking for a place to dump:

“For months they had cruised forlornly from one port to another, boarded by hostile maritime police and customs officers, public health officials and journalists alerted to the possibility of a major ecological disaster.”

One by one, the crew and eventually the captain abandoned the ship, leaving Johnson to his own devises, now by default as captain of a poisonous sinking vessel.

“All his life he had failed to impose himself on anything…He had always reacted to events, never initiated anything on his own. Now for the first time, he could be the captain…and master of his own fate.”

He found an old island used during WW II just north of Puerto Rico where he beached the ship. As the chemicals seeped into the lagoon causing amazing bloom in new vegetation, he meets a biologist who is studying the island herself.

“Everywhere a deranged horticulture was running riot.”

“By now, four months after his arrival…the one-time garbage island had become a unique botanical garden, generating new species of trees, vines and flowering plants everyday. A powerful life-engine was driving the island.”

She begins using Johnson’s exposure to the new eco-system as part of her studies. She feeds him new fruit, make shim trap new birds, and even becomes pregnant with his child, one she is sure will be a new, stronger human species. Johnson in turn falls to delusion, and long bouts of hallucination.

“You’re learning to control time.”

“There is no time anymore—everything is too beautiful for time.”

Things become untenable and the authorities are brought in to destroy the failing new mutant island, including Johnson himself. The child still grows within Christine but with little hope of surviving, for with all the new species:

“The life of the individual becomes the entire life of the species.”

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30

#86 Oh, to be a Blobel!- Philip K. Dick

#86 Oh, to be a Blobel!- Philip K. Dick

George was a spy during the war between humans and Blobels, large amoeba-like single celled creatures occupying Mars, and Titan. To become this spy, he was converted into Blobel form. Since the war he has not been able to stop the uncontrolled conversions and remains a Blobel for almost half his existence.

“…for almost twelve hours a day, he reverted…to his old war-time Blobel shape. To a formless unicellular-like blob, right in the middle of his own apartment.”

Because of this, he is unable to live a normal human life. His homeostatic robot psychoanalyst has a great idea and recommends that George get together with Vivian. She is a Blobel and spied on humans during the war, and like Gorge converts to her spy form uncontrollably. Since they are the same form 7 hours a day and are equally outcasts in their community, the pairing makes sense.

Both of them “are outcasts in either civilization; both of [them] are stateless and hence gradually suffering a loss of ego-identity.”

They marry, and have 4 children…one full Blobel, one full human and two hybrids. The tension on their marriage and their burgeoning business is immense. The end has a great vintage O.Henry twist to it.

Notable Passage: “Pete, I cant go on. I have a gelatinous blob for a child.”

Rating: 7-8-8-8 Total= 31

#74 What the Dead Men Say- P.K. Dick

#74 What the Dead Men Say- P.K. Dick

It’s the year 2075, the world’s richest man lies dead, in frozen suspended animation. His smart but uneducated PR man, Johnny Barefoot, is supposed to bring him back to life. But they fail to revive him back to “half-life”, the pre-cursor to full re-animation.

However, the most powerful man in the world becomes the most powerful man in the afterlife. The voice of Louis Sarapis suddenly appears to be emanating from a light-week away right outside the solar system.  These post-mortem transmissions give instructions to Barefoot and his grand-daughter, the drug addict religious heir to his communications empire. His power grows and all communication systems broadcast remnants of Sarapis, his voice, his shadowy image, knocking out any ability for real-time communications. 

His aim appears to be political, of course, and he moves to elect his long-time ally from beyond the grave.  Intrigue, conspiracy, dead-men talking…all sorts of fun here. There were several fun tid-bits.   Dick foresees the inevitable merger of the Democratic and Republican parties into one duopoly. Also interesting was when Sarapis supposedly communicates with the living by remotely typing out a message, it was described as “Got a text”.  I’m guessing that 1964 is probably the earliest use of that phrase in that context. 

Notable Passages: “Burial is barbaric…remnant of the primitive origins of our culture.”

Being dead- “It was dreamlike. I don’t mean vague or unreal. I mean the logic, the weightlessness; you see, that’s the main difference. You’re free of gravity. Its hard to realize how important that it, but just think how many of the characteristics of the dream derive from that one fact.”

Rating: 7-10-9-8 Total= 34

#61 War Game- Philip K. Dick

#61 War Game- Philip K. Dick

It’s holiday shopping time and the new toys from an advanced extra-terrestrial world have to be tested. The Ganymedean products contain potentially dangerous technology and cannot be released until we know they are safe for children. 

There is a suit that tricks the brain into seeing made-up realities, there is an alien version of Monopoly (monopoly is always just monopoly they posit), and there is a war game.  The war game has highly adaptable soldiers trying to take a Citadel.  As the structure defends itself, The toy soldiers fight back, but ultimately loses:

“It has to, psychologically speaking, it symbolizes the external reality. The dozen soldiers, of course, represent to the child his own efforts to cope. By participating in the storming of the citadel, the child undergoes a sense of adequacy in dealing with the harsh world. Eventually he prevails, but only after a painstaking period of effort and patience…at least that’s what the instruction book says.”

The test team is worried that the soldiers might: “…make a ninety degree turn and start firing at the nearest human being.”

Their concerns increase as it appears that the game could be programed to slowly make a bomb, or some kind of Ganymedean Trojan Horse.  In the end the true danger may be just under our nose and could be in the most tame and ubiquitous item.

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#49 Second Variety- Philip K. Dick

#49 Second Variety- Philip K. Dick

In an alternate Cold War outcome, the earth has been mostly destroyed by nuclear bombs.  Two sides still battle on “terra” near Normandy, France.  The Americans have designed AI creatures called “claws” that have decimated the Russian defenses. In a familiar arms race refrains they justify it by:

“If we hadn’t invented them, they would have.”

“It was interesting, the use of artificial forms of warfare. How had they got started? Necessity.”

We learn that the Claws have started designing their own AI machines that can’t or don’t care to discern between American or Russian troops, and will kill any human they find. The first variety is The Wounded Soldier designed to make real living soldiers open the bunkers for the Claws.  The third variety looks like a human child and is called David Edward Derring (D.E.D or dead). As they wonder what the missing Second Variety is, the trapped humans turn on each other in a paranoid state.

There is a lot of Cold War symbolism in this story, marveling at the chilling effectiveness of the robots, a Russian solder says: “It only takes one of them. Once the first one gets in it admits the others. Hundreds of them, all alike…Perfect socialism…the ideal of the communist state. All citizens interchangeable.” A perfect statement of the communist stereotype that American’s feared during the “Red Scare.”

There was a nice symbol of the gray lizard that masked itself as the color of the ash, calling it the “perfect adaptation.” Overall a good story, extremely predictable now, but I’m sure less so in 1953. It probably could have been 20 pages shorter. 

Notable Passage: “Your creations are your greatest achievements.”

Rating: 7-7-6-8 Total= 28

#38 Imposter (1953)- Philip Dick

The earth is involved in a brutal war with the Outspacers.  Spence Olham, an engineer working with The Project is arrested and accused of being an enemy spy.  According to intelligence, because of his high level access he was chosen by the Outspacers to be killed and replaced by a robot carrying an animated u-bomb.  Of course Olham denies any of this is true and we spend the whole story wondering which side is correct.

“There wasn’t anyway I could demonstrate that I wasn’t myself.”

This is an OK story, which apparently inspired two different feature films, the last of which was released in 2002 and starred Gary Sinise…who knew?  It has some typically fun Sci-fi elements like warring alien races, humanoid robots, space stations on the far side of the moon, etc.  Overall it’s a satisfying read although not at the same level as Dick’s more important works.

Among the myriad nitpicking one can do while reading sci-fi stories, was a fun little moment when Olham escapes capture on the moon.  We are in a society so sophisticated that we can travel to the moon in an hour by ourselves but security is so lax that a war criminal of the highest order can elude his death sentence by the equivalent of a “look at that pink elephant over there” distraction prank.  Amusing.

 Notable Passage: “Everyone was frightened, everyone was willing to sacrifice the individual because of the group fear.”

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#32 Minority Report- Philip K. Dick

#32 Minority Report- Philip K. Dick

I have always been a fan of sci-fi but never a true SCI-FI FAN.  What I mean, is that I’ve always liked what I read but was far from knowledgeable about the genre, or its  deep history and influence over culture and technology.   For example, when I was in high school I volunteered to do a verbal presentation about the history of robots, but I still have never read nor seen genre classics like Dune…gasp, I know! 

BTW, here’s a fun fact I remember from that 10^th grade report: did you know that Czech Sci-Fi writer Karel Capek invented the word Robot in his 1920 story Rossum’s Universal Robots (of course the concept of robots came much earlier). "Robot" became only the 2^nd Czech word to enter the English language. Can you name the first? *see answer below

This past year I’ve been reading many SF authors new to me, and of course P.K.Dick is one of those legendary names. For this project, I begin with a collection of short fiction called Minority Report.  I will not compare or mention outside of this paragraph the movie made from this tale, one of three huge blockbusters based on Dick’s work.  Not that this Tom Cruisiest of Tom Cruise movies doesn’t warrant a watch, just that this is a blog about the written word. So by all means have at the film if you wish.

Minority Report posses a classic moral discussion, and one played out in law enforcement and military engagements throughout time…the difference between preventive and pre-emptive action. If you could view the future and see someone commit a crime before it happens, is that person guilty of that crime deserving of punishment?  The world of the MR amazingly has a pre-cognitive program with time-viewing abilities and has answered that question in the resounding affirmative. And it works! 

“In our society we have no major crimes…but we do have a detention center full of would-be criminals.”

There are two ways laws generally work.  They’re either coercive or punitive.  If you refuse to talk to a grand jury for example, you are locked up until you do. That’s coercive. If you steal somebody’s car you are also locked up as punishment, that’s punitive.  The pre-cog program, by its mere existence is somehow both purely coercive and purely punitive.  This world has rid itself of 99.8% of all violent crime, but still has a prison full of people locked up. How can you punish someone for a crime if it was stopped before it happens? That’s where the fun begins.

Since the precog program KNOWS that someone will break the law, that person already HAS broken the law.  The concept of space-time is always fascinating, and making crime prevention the centerpiece of this mind experiment is brilliant.

Unfortunately, readers wanting an in depth discussion into metaphysics are distracted by the story of a power struggle between the two entities that share the precog information. The military wishes to prove that by telling the future criminal the details of their future crime, they change the very existence of that crime.  More importantly, that even the precogs can get it wrong sometimes, and if you can’t actually predict the future 100%, you can’t doll out punishment absolutely…what a concept?  (heavy sarcastic tone)

There are obvious large holes in this story. Precogs can predict someone cheating on their taxes but not the chief of police being framed or a massive military coup? Pre-crime has gotten rid of all violent crime but guns still exist? With the two parties who can see the future fighting it out, shouldn’t the future-reading abilities spin off into some crazy feedback loop of prediction?

I would have loved to see more discussion about preemptive vs. preventive law enforcement, or seen a larger look at The Theory of Multiple Futures which outlines the concept of the Minority Report.

The largest cloud looming over this story, or at least should be is this obvious question:  Why not just lock people up for the period when the future crime was supposed to be committed, then let them go? I guess we're supposed to assume this society has already had this discussion. Fine, then how does a society that allows for zero tolerance on thought-crimes, let the one guy who did commit an actual murder NOT get locked up in the end?

The concepts here are amazing, the story engaging, and the legacy of this work is clear, but in pure story-crafting terms, the execution was somewhat lacking. But that shouldn’t take away the impact that it has had on the genre.

Notable Passages: “Perhaps he was trapped in a closed, meaningless time circle with no motive and no beginning.” 

Been there!

“With eyes glazed blank, it contemplated a world that did not yet exist, blind to the physical reality that lay around it.”

Yup…been there too!

Rating: 7-9-6-10 Total =32

*Answer to question: The first Czech word to enter the English language is Pistol.  Although minor etymology disputes sometimes claim the word arises from French or German words, most historians side with it originating in the Czech language.

#30 Spew- Neal Stephenson

#30 Spew- Neal Stephenson

I’ve only just stated reading Neal Stephenson this year, having just finished his impressive Speculative Fiction (SF) novel, Anathem. I found Spew in a collection of his notes, speeches, and short writings called Some Remarks.

The Spew is some version of the internet. Like many SF pieces, this deals with human interaction with machines and privacy in some undetermined future reality, or in an alternative current reality (current at least for 1994 when this story was written). In this world our protagonist is a rookie Profile Auditor 1, monitoring people’s lives through their consumptions, trying to win a promotion to Profile Auditor 2.

He ends up profiling a woman who appears to be too normal and follows her to the Hotel where she works. It appears her “normalcy” is as he expects fabricated, as she turns out to be some kind of mid-nineties hacker.

Its reads like one of those Kurt Vonnegut sketches where he delves into human’s meta-relationship with technology.  Just by talking about what we watch on TV, we are in a way studying our own psyche.  There is a fun moment when he is monitoring the front desk clerk monitoring his minibar activity.

This doesn’t really break any ground in the genre, but its still a decent read. Like a lot of Sci-Fi conceptual pieces, once real technology catches up to where the story is, half of the story is lost.  The questions over internet privacy, and some nebulous entity knowing our entertainment, and consumer trends is, of course still very much relevant…and in fact for 1994 is pretty ahead of its time (at least for the non SF community).

The story has no conclusion and doesn’t really feel completed. Like I stated earlier it feels like something from a Kurt Vonnegut notebook, which is praise enough.

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total =24