Knives Episode 19 Released!

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It seems like someone — or something — is trying to prevent our friends from reaching the fortress at Brewer’s Ford. The fort means different things to each of the companions — to Elena it represents safety; Katherine may be walking to a dungeon cell and the gallows. Martin is not a big fan of walls, but considering what’s out here trying to kill them, he’s willing to chance it for a while.

In a way this episode is its own biography, as it has seen its share of resistance as well. Chapter 19 has gone through several metamorphoses as it has moved closer to the big time, with whole sections inserted only to be removed again. Until a very short time ago I had moved much of what I planned to put into chapter 20 into this chapter as well, but this chapter was getting huge and I don’t want to hold back on the descriptions of what happens next. (As I’ve hinted before, episode 20 is a biggie.) So ultimately this episode is a little underweight, but has plenty going on to make it worthwhile. I hope I haven’t overworked the chapter, but it reads pretty well to me.

Thanks once more to all the patrons!

19: The Crossing

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Starmind: The Rest of It

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Talk talk talk sex escape talk talk hippies lecture drugs talk talk talking while dong things end.

To expand on that a bit:

Talk, talk, talk. There is a sizable chunk of Dave Van Arnam’s Starmind that takes place in a single room, with most of the characters unable to move. There’s just talking. Then the Tylerbody (the shorthand used for the three personalities all sharing one body) bangs the hot nurse (with Joe at the controls; Jailyn has a bit of trouble with this part), and then literally minutes later is rescued from the clutches of the Evil Dr. Brian.

Tylerbody blinks Tylereyes and whistles with Tylerlips. It is a creative solution to the impossibility of finding an adequate pronoun for the multimind. Creative, perhaps, but not very good. Later, when the personalities experience moments of great union, THEY see through THEIR eyes and learn about THEMSELF. I found MYSELF glancing ahead to see how long these all-cap pronouns were going to last.

There are some fun parts along the way — for instance the book, written in 1969, credits the Beatles’ music from the 1980’s (their ‘middle years’) with helping to spark a global cultural revolution. Alas, that revolution petered out after global biological warfare killed half the population of Earth, but the country folk (or as I call them, ‘hippies’) have been carrying on.

Meanwhile, up in space, the giant asteroids that have been outfitted with pseudogravitic multiwave generators haven’t up to this point accomplished much except cost a lot and suck down gigantic amounts of power. Think of them as super-huge microwave ovens that don’t really heat things up very well. But as the three minds become more integrated they realize something: Those microwave ovens will work better than anyone ever imagined, if only the right person were to stick THEIR head in it. So THEY do. And it’s awesome.

And thus mankind is given the stars, as long as they can construct just the right three-brained people to stick their heads in the microwaves. And, as no other intelligence has come up with the idea of merging people’s brains and sticking them in gigantic, inefficient, microwave ovens, mankind goes on to rule the galaxy. But that, we are told, is another story. Maybe one without so much talking in it.

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Starmind: Chapters 3 and 4

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It’s not often I find a novel where every damn chapter is worthy of comment. Starmind, by Dave Van Arnam, turns out to be one of those. Not because it’s good, oh no, not all all.

When last we left this little yarn, I was wondering what possible excuse the author could find for medical professionals to even want to try to put the halves of two different people’s brains into one body.

Dr. Brian pretty much says he just wants to see what will happen. There’s a first time for everything, after all.

Yeah, Dr. Brian. The Brain surgeon. I have stopped correcting myself as I read. Nascent writers out there, if for some reason you want to call your guy Dr. Brain, just do it. No need to be coy. (Or better yet, call him Dr. Mtumbo.)

At this time, there are six characters of note. Inside the head, there are two men and one woman (although one of the men is more of an emotive blob). Outside the head, there are also two men and one woman. Both women are attractive, in nonspecific ways. Only one of the men has been described at all.

In chapter three, two of the three men capable of this sort of thought decide it might be kinda cool to have their brains installed in a hot female body. Both women find the idea of being installed in a man’s body to be loathsome. So… 1969.

On the second page of chapter three I laughed more than once. The dialog! Holy crap!

Here’s a choice nugget — the doctor, talking to the reporter:

I will not speculate on any emotional ties that might exist between you and Miss Rost, but it is obvious that your concern runs deeper than I, as a medical researcher and practitioner, dare to take cognizance of.

He better not dare to take cognizance of it! Or this gem three tiresome paragraphs later, as Parker, the reporter, continues his stilted verbal sparring with Dr. Brain Brian:

I am a professional in my own field, as you are in yours, doctor; and in my case it means I know how to research those necessary background facts that make conversations such as this more meaningful than the customary exchange of platitudinous awarenesses of each other’s position.

Both those quotes are parts of much longer paragraphs. Despite this unbearable verbal mass, they do little more than exchange platitudinous awarenesses of each other’s position, along with a heapin’ helpin’ of as-you-know-Bobs. The reporter, for instance, tells the brian brain surgeon that it has been eleven years since the first successful brain transplant.

But I will say this: although there are some horrible moments in the discourse between the characters inside the head, it is way better that the interactions outside the head. At lest so far; the head occupants aren’t to a stage where they can engage in stilted verbal exchanges. Though there are plenty of problems inside the cranium, as well. Jailyn is witness to one of Joe’s sex fantasies, then exercises her will to make it stop. She apparently has none of her own. Sex, it seems, is something men want and women allocate.

There’s a nice twist, though, as the “simple” thoughts of the Idiot Adonis unexpectedly rise from the previously-unmentioned surviving lower parts of his brain and provide an emotional foundation for the two intellects who discover themselves so intimately connected. In the hands of a skilled writer, that might make the premise of a great story. I could picture a one-act play based on that theme.

Alas, we are not in the hands of a skilled writer, my friends. Yet still I read on, finding comedy where none was intended, hoping the pretty nurse kicks her boss of irrelevant appearance in the balls, knowing she won’t. The mystery of “why would anyone do something so stupid” has been answered with a “why not?” and on we go. The next question is: how will the author contrive to expose this odd trio to pseudogravitic multiwaves? And will he manage that before the ridiculous dialog slips from funny to tiresome?

Stay tuned, dear readers, for the answers to these burning questions!

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Starmind

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I found a battered old paperback in a box I packed up back in 2004, as I was preparing for the Homeless Tour. It was not with other books; it was jumbled with stuff that had come from my desk in my previous job. Starmind, it’s called, by Dave Van Arnam. It didn’t look even remotely familiar. The crappy copy on the back cover, circa 1969, did not stir any recollections.

The cover carries the tagline, “What ships can be launched on the far seas of the mind?”

I have now read the first two chapters, and I think that’s enough for me to stop and write a brief commentary. You don’t have to thank me; it’s what I do.

In chapter one, we meet three people and a technology. The three people are: a super-studly super-rich super-idiot, a super-clever super-sexy super-rich woman, and a super-intuitive super-smart engineer. The engineer is taking care of one of the massive pseudogravitic multiwave generators humanity has constructed out in space. Multiwave is… well, that’s not clear yet, but the Boss of Earth has made a huge commitment to the technology, with the hope of achieving faster-than-light travel. The engineer (Joe) also has a broken back, which gives him a chance to muse about how amazing it was that modern microsurgery can even repair nerves.

First note: I don’t care how far away the year 2057 might seem when you’re writing a story, there’s no need to be so specific. There’s no need to mention that the engineer’s dad was born in 1997. There’s no need to put dates on medical breakthroughs.

Anyway, chapter two (uh, this is a spoiler, but it’s only chapter two so get over it) comes along and all three of our main people are killed. One is burned to a crisp in a spaceship explosion, one is baked by multiwaves, and one simply falls to his death.

But get this: half of super-clever Jailyn’s brain was preserved, and half of super-intuitive Joe’s brain was also put into deep-freeze. And poor, idiot adonis Benjy is still completely intact, except his brain was destroyed in the fall.

So that’s where I’m at in this story, but what comes next is pretty obvious. Someone, for some mind-boggling reason, is going to decide it’s a good idea to put the two half-brains together in Benjy’s head. Pseudogravitic multiwaves will get into the mix, and a transhuman will be created. One whose mind, I might guess, will hold far seas upon which ships might travel. Or something like that.

The writing really isn’t all that good, I’m afraid; at points the dialog is downright odd. Van Arman invented a reporter as a foil for the Jailyn’s exposition in chapter one, and the conversation between the two doesn’t really resemble human conversation. “Trumped!” the reporter shouts once.

Good or not, I’m reading on! I must learn the logic that will be used to even consider putting two halves of different brains in the same body, and why anyone would think the outcome would be other than a horribly deranged monstrosity not even capable of governing the body they occupy. But someone’s going to suggest it, and others are going to approve.

Unless… maybe the multiwaves are behind the whole thing…

With that in mind, consider the way the book reached me, here in 2016. Perhaps there are larger, subtler forces at work. Maybe the multiwaves put the book in that box. If that’s the case, the fate of the world may hinge on me finishing this book.

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Republican Conservatives Find their Voices (at last)

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For years, the Republicans have been making promises to the so-called “religious conservatives”, even though they had no intention of keeping those promises once elected. “Overturn Roe v Wade!” is trotted out, the Evangelical Christians punch the ‘R’ button in the voting booth, then the slogan is packed away until the next election.

But Republicans have found themselves more and more dependent on the Religious Right and other factions even farther out there that John McCain calls “the crazies”.

The crazies have taken their revenge. The conservatives of the Republican party swallowed their tongues as suddenly all the leading candidates in the primary rush were crazy-fueled WWE candidates. The conservatives remained silent, fearful of pissing off the crazies, hoping that out of this mess somehow rational minds would prevail. They bit their tongues as the crazies took over the engine room and pushed the Enterprise to warp 9 and pointed it directly at the sun.

I did not plan to use a Star Trek metaphor, but by Skippy I’m running with it.

McCain and Kaisch and a host of others now see that the ship is gong to blow up if they don’t do something. McCain blasted Trump. A gaggle of 50 influential Republicans just gave him the finger. Money that would have backed a rational Republican is landing in Democratic pockets. Money follows winners.

Senators in close races are distancing themselves from the national stink-bomb that is Trump. The conservative press (not to be confused with infotainment like Fox) has turned on the man. Trump is running out of supporters to alienate.

Leaks come out that party bosses are drawing up contingency plans should Trump quit. Other leaks say the top Republicans are “phoning in” their campaign support for their presidential nominee. Those leaks aren’t about the presidential election, they’re about the senate and the house.

The conservatives are speaking, at last. I don’t agree with some of the things they say, but at least they’re talking about policy, in actual sentences. If all these wise conservatives had found the backbone to speak six months ago, we might be looking at a very different election. Now, they are just trying to emerge from this election with some semblance of a party. They’re putting all power to the shields and hoping they still have a ship on the other side of the sun.

Post Script: Democrats, learn the lesson here. You make empty promises to labor every cycle, using them the same way Republicans use Christians. Bernie gave you fair warning that you’re not getting away with shit any longer.

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A Long Night

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Lying in bed, left hand clamped over my eyes, my right arm wrapped around my head to apply pressure so my sinuses don’t blow my face off. Everything hurts. My teeth hurt. Looking forward to the next sneeze, building somewhere in the background, a feeling of squirrels chewing my nasal passages, but when it comes, fifteen seconds of bliss. Or at least reduction in discomfort.

There are no more pills to take. I lie, wheezing, and think, “Maybe whiskey will help…”

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Trump and Idiots

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I have, on several occasions, said that people who vote for Trump are idiots. Having read the excellent article Why Trump Voters are not Complete Idiots I have been forced to question my stance.

The article, if I may be so bold as to recast, turns the US into a two-story house. The folks on the ground floor get by, the folks upstairs do well. By any measure, I’m living upstairs.

It’s important to note that while money is a big factor in where you think you live, it is not the only factor. Income is only one way one’s value in society is defined. Respect from those around you is another. Upstairs people feel more valued.

There’s no guaranteed pass to the upper floor, but a college education is pretty damn close to one. Go to college, move upstairs. And here’s where the core resentment toward immigrants comes in. It’s not the illegal immigrants coming in on the ground floor that rankle, it’s the legal immigrants, the educated ones, who step right onto the upstairs that piss people off.

It’s not how well you’re doing, it’s how well you’re doing compared to the other guy.

So Liberals and Democrats (not at all the same groups) make two basic promises: 1) we will make living on the ground floor suck less, and 2) we will make it easier for your kids to go upstairs.

But for a man just getting by, with his kids already past “college age”, there’s not a lot of upside there. He remembers when just being a hard-working man doing his job and not bitching too much was enough to feel secure in this country. Maybe he couldn’t get upstairs, but hard work meant something, and he could be confident that his family would be taken care of. For that guy, that was when America was great.

Trump, while not offering anything specific at all, implies that he will restore America to those good old days. But he isn’t offering to make living on the ground floor better, he wants you to believe that he’s changing the rules for who gets to live upstairs. For people who feel stuck downstairs and degraded by assholes like me calling them idiots, maybe it’s time to change the rules.

It gets a little ugly, though, when you consider that during this mythical period when America was great, the upstairs was occupied almost exclusively by white men. So when he talks about going back to the good ol’ days, he’s talking to the working white men whose fortunes have flatlined while all the other demographics in this country have caught up. But he’s making it a white-men-vs-the-world proposition. Sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much.

These folks have heard all the political double-speak before, but there they sit, downstairs, even while brown and yellow college-educated kids skip up to the luxury suites without breaking a sweat. Time to shake things up! Time to value the people who work with their hands, who actually make stuff. So people in the making-stuff group who want to shake things up are not inherently idiots. They are following an agenda that, at least superficially, gives them the better chance to get upstairs. The Democrats are telling them their grandchildren will have a more fair shot at the stairs, but that’s far away.

Blow up the system. When the debris stops falling, who knows who will be on top?

So far, that makes sense. But there’s still the question: Is Trump the guy to do that?

Let’s take another look at those good ol’ days. When a working man could provide for his family and maybe even send his kids to college. Or at least technical school, or a skilled apprenticeship. Those days actually existed, not long ago.

Was it the Republicans, or the white men upstairs that created those conditions? Well, no. Not even remotely. It was the labor unions. The Great America Trump wants us to remember is the America when workers had power. When there was dignity in labor and a comfortable life even while the fat cats upstairs got rich.

So, white men who remember a better past, is Trump really going to return us to those days? Will he restore the power of the unions?

Hell, no.

He couldn’t if he tried, and he’s not going to try. Among the many lawsuits Trump has settled, there are the union-busting ones. He is famous for shitting on the working-class people. Gleeful, even. He is the worst thing that could possibly happen to the working-class joe in this country. He is a spoiled rich man with a long history of disregard for the people he is now asking to put him in the White House.

So, back to my premise: are people idiots for voting for a fundamental change to the system? No. Not if they don’t believe that we are on a path that makes things better for their grandchildren.

But are they idiots for voting for Trump? Yes, absolutely. Trump is one of the people who put them where they are, and he has no intention of changing that. Just ask that man of the people over in Russia.

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Let’s Make Episode 18 Official

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So here’s the thing. I actually hit the “publish” button on Knives episode 18 a few days ago. And immediately had second thoughts. I was confident in the story, but not so much in the mechanics. So I didn’t tell anyone.

At least one faithful reader found the chapter anyway, and I’m flattered by the enthusiasm. But over the last few days I’ve been subtly betterizing the episode. Hat tip here to my proofreader for this episode, who didn’t sign up for the job but still accepted the role gracefully.

In revisionist history news, I added two words to episode 13. “Trust me.” The aforementioned proofreader might better be dubbed “editor”.

Looking toward the future, episode 19 is having an identity crisis. There are the simple things that must happen, and there’s the who-knows-what-when question. I just wrote an exchange that I’ll probably delete tomorrow. I have to remind myself that everything that happens in episode 19 is in service of episode 20. Because in 20, shit gets real.

Shut up and let me read!

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The Unlikely Ones

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I just finished reading a fantasy novel, and I really enjoyed it. In some ways it was a lot like other fantasy novels, but it was very different in several important ways.

It starts with the Unlikely Ones themselves. They are an odd assortment, seven souls brought together by the evil of a witch, bound to a quest to free them from the tyranny of her enchantments.

Ho, hum. Another Quest Story. But… consider. One of the seven is a fish. Another is a Toad. There is a gallant knight, and a lady fair broken and twisted young girl named Thing, along with a crippled kitten, a flightless raven, and a lovelorn unicorn who has lost his horn.

This quest is personal. None wish to change the world; they wish merely to be relieved of their burdens, to return to a normal life.

The setting of the story is England. Some kind of mystical between-the-ages England, but definitely not any sort of Middle Earth thing. I would like to go back and review the story and connect the events in the book with actual places. Because I’m absolutely confident the writer of this story had the full Ordinance Survey at her disposal while she pulled the party from place to place.

Back to the story. It is a play in three acts, clearly delineated by the chapter titles. At the beginning, just like in every fantasy tale, the questers come together. Even here, things aren’t completely according to script because, well… I’m not going to tell you. But you know how Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy starts with the world being destroyed? There’s a bit of that here, too, with one of the main staples of the quest story getting wrapped up right at the get-go.

The second act is perhaps the most predictable, as the unlikely ones are bound to each other, and Thing falls in love with the knight, and each of the seven must past a test of courage, or quick thought, or what have you. Before this stage of the quest is over, it is apparent to them that the quest has been specifically designed this way, so by the last test everyone knows whose turn it is. Which is kind of nice, because as readers we see it coming a mile away, and it would be disappointing if the characters in the story were too stupid to see the pattern as well.

The thing I most like about this story, however, is that victory has a cost. The story doesn’t end with the completion of the quest; there is a final movement in the book in which we watch the Unlikely Ones, no longer united by purpose, quietly return to lives suited to their various species. The world moves on, the ordinary triumphs.

I believe the book is targeted at young adults, but there is some “mature content” (rhymes with penises). I think some of Thing’s self-image issues would resonate more with a 15-year-old girl than with a 50-something male engineer, as we all wait for Conn to see her how she really is.

Overall, a mighty good read. A quest story that keeps things personal, avoiding the tiresome “Quest for the Important Thing to Defeat the Evil Guy” mold, but for that, perhaps more poignant.

Note: if you use the above links to buy this book (or a $1000 Generic Men’s 3D Print Skeleton Playing Guitar T-shirt), I get a kickback.

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Email Security 101: A Lesson Yet Unlearned

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So it looks like the Russians are doing their best to help proudly racist Trump, by stealing (and perhaps altering) emails passed between members of the Democratic National Committee. It seems like the Democratic party preferred the candidate who was actually part of the party over a guy hitching his wagon to the Democrats to use that political machine as long as it was convenient to him.

But that’s not the point of this episode.

The point is this: Had the Democrats taken the time to adopt email encryption, this would not have happened. When the state department emails were hacked, the same criticism applies.

It is possible to:

  1. Render email unreadable by anyone but the intended recipient
  2. Make alteration of emails provably false

But nobody does it! Not even people protecting state secrets. I used to wonder what email breach was going to be the one that made people take email security seriously. I’m starting to think, now, that there is no breach bad enough. Even the people who try to secure email focus on the servers, when it’s the messages that can be easily hardened.

There is no privacy in email. There is no security in email. But there could be. Google could be the white hat in this scenario, but they don’t want widespread email encryption because they make money reading your email.

Currently only the bad guys encrypt their emails, because the good guys seem to be too fucking stupid.

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Our Next Vice-President

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According to John Kaisch, Trump’s kid told him point-blank that if he were Trump’s vice-president, he would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy. In other words, he would have had all the responsibilities of an actual president. Trump, presumably, would be off pounding vodka with Vladimir Putin*.

Kaisch said no. He pretty much hates everything Trump stands for. And since he is governor of Ohio, a state Trump must carry, when he says no it hurts.

I’ve said it before: Trump has no interest in being president, he only wants to become president. So it’s not hard to get from there to assuming that a vote for Donald Trump is actually a vote for Mike Pence. Just as evil, but perhaps at least somewhat competent. So there’s that bit of sunshine if you feel compelled to vote for a racist fear-mongering bigot out of some misguided impression that he is in some way “conservative”. (Pro tip: Trump is not conservative.)

Then there was the handing of the announcement of the Republican VP nominee. It was botched, badly, while Trump spun in indecision and tried to weasel out at the last minute. Another display of the general incompetence of the “best people” (mostly his children) that Trump has gathered around himself.

On the other side of the ticket, the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee is going to be interesting. There are rumblings that it might be Elizabeth Warren, but given her full-frontal tweet attacks on Drumpf and pals I don’t think it will be her. She’s the attack dog now, and although Clinton has said she wants that in a VP, I think ultimately the campaign will look better if the attack dog is not on the ticket.

Also: I don’t think Warren likes Clinton that much. She hates Trump far more, sure, and she’ll go attack-dog for the party, and she knows that the party will remember. The Democrats at this point have their shit together way more than the Republicans do. Those super delegates the Bernie crowd complains about? This is how you get them, by helping win elections for others.

Don’t be surprised if Warren is our second female president. But personally I’d be surprised if she was Vice President first.

One common qualification for Vice President is hailing from a key swing state. That’s why Trump wanted Kaisch. Warren is from Massachusetts; Clinton will need no help winning there. She needs someone who can deliver her a critical state in the upcoming election. A place like Florida, or… Ohio… Someone who can balance the ticket and reach across to disenfranchised conservatives. Someone who has a track record of standing up to Trump, who puts ideals over ambition.

Someone like John Kaisch. Now, wouldn’t that be something?

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*Putin would rapidly tire of Trump, and ultimately, while janked up on benzedrine, cocaine, and Viagra, would shoot the POTUS just so he could say he did.

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I Agree with the Republicans about One Thing

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At the convention the delegates on the floor are getting all frothed up. One of the signs they’ve been given to wave around reads, “We deserve better.”

Yes you do, Republicans. You deserve better. But you hitched your wagon to a racist xenophobe child-king and now we have to embarrass your whole party as monumentally as possible to make sure you grow the backbone to not be railroaded again.

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Knives Episode 17 released.

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Episode 17 is ready to read! Martin may not be at his most lyrical, but you have to cut a guy some slack when his intestines have been rearranged. Kat makes a decision that catches everyone by surprise, with the possible exception of Bags, and Baldwin tries to convince me that he has a place in the larger narrative.

Behind the scenes, there were a couple of links that weren’t working, but everything should be hunky-dory now. Let me know if you have problems. This theme isn’t working quite as awesomely with iPad as it was alleged to; I’m still poking at that.

And, as always, a big thank-you to my patrons. This wouldn’t be happening without you.

Episode 17: The Cost of a Small Victory

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A Few Random Thoughts about That Pokémon Thing

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A game that gets people out of their houses and interacting with one another is a good thing. If all those Farmville players (or whatever the last Big Thing was) actually start talking to other humans, that’s a win. Apparently people are discovering that exercise is a side effect of the game. But…

More of the zombies in the graveyard were in cars tonight. Kind of undoes the good of the previous paragraph, and accelerates global warming at the same time. So far, there’s been a copilot zombie in each car, holding the phone, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

This may be the first real game-changer in the internet era that wasn’t funded and first used by the porn industry.

I think my next novel will be about a serial killer who lights houses on fire and then hacks people’s phones to put rare Pokémon prizes inside the inferno.

On that topic, who decides where PokéThings go? Is it some massive computer algorithm that is gathering unprecedented data on human behavior? I think I have my novel after the next one. Pokémon Go is like SkyNet, except instead of trying to wipe out humanity, it will just lead them around chasing colorful little monsters, unwittingly doing the AI’s legwork, pointing their cameras were the PokéBeast wants to see.

Or maybe the next Augmented Reality game will be Grand Theft Auto Go. Steal that Ferrari and deliver it to this address and level up!

Will our phones put little Pikachus next to the Trump button in the voting stalls? Or will people just forget to put their phones down and cast their vote while Google watches? So many questions…

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Looking for the Joke with a Microscope

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I was thinking about the movie Repo Man the other day, and a song got stuck in my head. I mean, really wedged in there.

“It could be worse,” I hear you all say. “The soundtrack to Repo Man is epic.” And it is. I could have “TV Party” running circles in my brain, or “Pablo Picasso”. But no, the song that keeps popping back up in my head is not on the soundtrack, even though it is an integral part of one scene. Someone even gets beat up for singing it.

Yep, I’m Feeling 7-up.

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