Short Story: The Star

"The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke as published in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF

Quotes:

It is three thousand light years to the Vatican.

And sinking into the sea, still warm and friendly and life-giving, is the sun that will soon turn traitor and obliterate all this innocent happiness.

Synopsis:

Somewhere in the mid-26th century an unnamed Jesuit astrophysicist is having a crisis of faith. He is the chief astrophysicist of a mission to study the remnants of a supernova. When the ship arrives in the former star system they find that one planet did survive the solar holocaust. It was this systems equivalent of Pluto, circling far from it's parent star. On it they find something they dub the Vault.

The Vault is a monument left behind by a race that knew it's own extinction was coming and wanted to leave some record of their existence for others to find. This includes many things, art, texts and videos. Some of which the crew of the mission watch. This is a great tragedy, and leaves the crew depressed, but it is not the cause of the Jesuits crisis. 

He has done some calculations and is able to determine that the light from this supernova is the same light that heralded the birth of Jesus Christ.

Thoughts:

A number of years ago I read a blog post (now on a substack) by the Dark Herald about Stargate. The movie, not the tv show that came later. One of the criticisms he had of it was of the handling of the archeology scenes and the lack care that was shown in the handling of ancient artifacts. I thought about that when reading this story. The crew are all serious professional scientists, but none of them are archeologists. So what is their reaction when finding what has to be one of the greatest xeno-archeological finds in human history? Where the slightest mishandling could destroy countless literally irreplaceable archeological treasures?

"Hey, lets crack it open! What's the worst that could happen?" 

Some might think this is an unfair criticism, but if you're gonna write "serious" science fiction, which this most definitely is, then that's the kind of thing you have to think of. And a single line could have fixed it. Something like, "Stephens the xeno-archeologist hadn't expected much work this trip, but it turned out to be the biggest dig of his career."

Outside of that, the story is very well written. And I remember thinking that the first time I read it when I was a teenager, but on this re-read something did bother me. The big idea of this story, falls a little flat for me. It feels a little bit like the "theological" discussions elementary school kids have where they ask, "Could God make a rock so heavy he couldn't life it?" Only less intellectually honest and more mean spirited.

It makes me think think of someone asking a believer how they can still believe after, insert any one of the many tragedies in human history, happened. The difference being that this "tragedy" never happened. Now I'm agnostic so hardly the best person to hypothesize on how a religious person would react, but I imagine the discussion going something like this:

Author: "Can you still believe in your so-called loving god after he has done this?!"

Mildly confused religious person: "But, but it didn't happen. It's literally just a story you made up in your head."

Author: "But it could've! You don't know where that light came from. God could have slaughtered billions to send that sign! An since he could have you have to answer me how you can still have faith just as if it had really happened."

Mildly confused religious person: "But that's absurd! It's like asking if you still love your grandmother if she was a serial killer? She wasn't and there's no reason to think she was, but she could've been so you have to treat it as if she was."

Author: "Just like a religious bigot to call my grandmother a serial killer. Have you no shame? Jesus would be ashamed of you."

Moving from mildly confused to completely fed up religious person: "No I didn't! And you don't even believe in Jesus!" 

And so on. The story feels very much like a precursor to Internet atheism. Classier and more intelligent, but very much in the same vein. But the story did make me think, even if in ways that the author probably didn't intend, but that's still to it's credit.

Spanish: Day 4

 Words:

• Comes = You eat
• Come = Eat
• Maleta = Suitcase
• Boleta = Ticket
• Telfono = Phone
• Aeropuerto = Airport
• Museo = Museum
• Bano = Bathroom
• Banco = Bank
• Donde = Where
• Reserva = Reservation
• Tengo = I have
• Esta = It is
• Aqui = Here
• En = In
• Pasaporte = Passport
• Necesito = Need

Short Story: The Singing Diamond

"The Singing Diamond" by Dr. Robert L. Forward as published in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF

Quotes:

 My asteroid was singing.

The auto-robots brought it to us-still warm. It was a diamond-with a flaw. Right in the center of the barrel-size crystal was a thick sheet of highly reflecting metal.

Synopsis:

Red Vengeance has a problem. She has found her big score. An asteroid with enough valuable minerals in it to set her up for life. But it's being orbited-by something. Something that can go through iron like it's not there and cut through her space suit, and leg, with brutal efficiency. And it sings. After pulling herself back to the safety of her ship she almost gives up on her treasure trove, when she remembers a laboratory nearby in the Belt that were experienced with dealing with many strange and dangerous phenomena. 

She gets her asteroid towed to the lab and they figure out how to remove the orbiting menace and she gets her big score. But that pales in comparison to what they discover about the mysterious phenomenon.

Thoughts:

I enjoyed this story, but, one issue I had was the slow reveal of the protagonists gender. Forward takes his time revealing the fact the Red is a woman, and you can almost hear him giggling and saying, "Ooh, you thought the space miner was a man! But it's a woman! I've blown your mind and completely subverted all of your expectations!"

And I just groan and reply, "No. No you haven't. Not even in 1979 when the story was first published was that at all shocking. You were at least a few decades past that qualifying as a shocking reveal."

The thing is the protagonist being a woman does not matter to the story at all. Not even a little bit. This story is not about the characters. It's about the phenomena and how they deal with it. When he sticks to that it's an enjoyable little hard sf tale. That said, I don't really think short fiction was his strength. He did much better in novels, at least in the ones I've read of his. The novel length gave him space to flesh out his ideas, and deliver more satisfying stories.

Spanish: Day 3

 Words:

• Disculpe = Excuse me
• Ingles = English
• Espaniol = Spanish

Spanish: Day 2

 Words:

• Lo siento = I'm sorry
• Hola = Hello
• Perdun = Pardon me
• Agua = Water
• Gracias = Thanks
• Adios = Goodbye
• Buenas noches = Good night
• Por favor = Please
• Si = Yes
• No = Do not
• Much Gusto = Nice to meet you
• Es = Is
• Eres = are you, you're, aren't being
• Tu = You
• Soy = I am
• Una = feminine one 
• Un = Masculine one

Poem: Soul, wilt thou toss again?

 Soul, wilt thou toss again? 

By just such a hazard 

Hundreds have lost, indeed, 

But tens have won an all. 

Angels’ breathless ballot 

Lingers to record thee; 

Imps in eager caucus 

Raffle for my soul.

Dickinson, Emily. Collected Poems (AmazonClassics Edition) (pg. 6). Kindle Edition.

Thoughts:

She has a way with words. But the odds seem a bit long.

Spanish: Day 1

Words:

1.  El hombre = The man
2. Mujer = Woman
3. Nino = Boy
4. Nina = Girl
5. Manzana = Apple
6. Come = Eat
7. Bebe = I drink
8. Bebes = You drink
9. Una = One
10. Yo = Me or I
11. Tu = You
12. Ella = She
13. El = The
14. Leche = Milk
15. Pan = Bread
16. La = She

Simple sentences: 

1. Yo come una manzana.
2. Tu bebes leche.
3. La mujer comes pan.

Short Story: The Author of the Acacia Seeds

"The Author of the Acacia Seeds" by Ursula K. Leguin as published in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF

Quotes:

As the ant among foreign-enemy ants is killed, so the ant with ants dies, but being without ants is as sweet as honeydew.

Emperor! I anticipate my colleagues' response to this suggestion. Emperor! The most difficult, the most remote, of all the dialects of penguin.

What is Language?

Synopsis:

This is an epistolary short story. It is made up of extracts from a scientific journal for the science of Therolinguistics. The study of the language of wild beasts. There are three extracts altogether. 

The first is the eponymous The Author of the Acacia Seeds which is a manifesto of an individualistic and introverted ant using scent to mark some seeds with her potentially revolutionary message.

The second is an announcement of an expedition to the arctic to study the language of emperor penguins. 

And the last is an editorial which posits the possibility of plant and even geological languages.

Thoughts:

This story has an alternative title, which does a better job of setting reader expectations. It is "The Author of the Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of Therolinguistics". My favorite bit was the first extract. The idea of an introverted ant that wants to overthrow the monarchy is kind of fascinating to me. I wish there had been more of that.

Not that I didn't enjoy the other extracts. I did. The self-serious tone of the editorial extract even got a laugh out of me. Well, at least a chuckle. But still I would like to see what that ant revolution would look like. Considering that the extract notes that the acacia seed message was found next to the ant authors decapitated corpse, I guess it answered that question, but I would have liked more detail to it.

Essay: The Closest Extra-solar Planet to Earth

The Closest Extra-solar Planet to Earth: What's Alpha Centauri Bb Like and How Can We Get There? by Les Johnson

Baen Books. Free Nonfiction 2013 (Kindle Locations 471-473). Baen Books. Kindle Edition. 

Quotes:

We clearly need a new type of space propulsion. Fortunately, nature has provided us with some possibilities and none will require us to rewrite the laws of physics

There is a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. What do we do about it?

Synopsis:

This is a brief article about the then recently discovered world orbiting Alpha Centauri B. It discusses several possible ways for humans to travel there. Such as a matter/antimatter powered drive, nuclear fusion, solar and laser sails and nuclear pulse drive. It also covers the limits and problems of each, and after concluding that a trip to the planet within a current human lifetime is unlikely pivots to getting better look at the planet by building a new type of space telescope that would use the concept of gravitational lensing to get us images of the planet that is not possible for any space telescope currently in operation.

Thoughts:

One thing I found funny in the article, which is the reason why it's the first quote from it, is the writer's concern about not re-writing the laws of physics. I always find that kind of thing amusing because the history of science is a history of re-writing the laws of physics, chemistry or any other branch of science you care to name. I've never read anything by Les Johnson before this, but I do intend to read more by him. He's a good writer who writes with great clarity. Outside of being a writer he also works for NASA. One option that he left out of the article was a magsail, short for magnetic sail. I think they provide a viable option for travel to the nearer stars, and in a shorter timeframe than the other options he included. Though there would still have to be many years, perhaps of decades, of development done before such a craft could launch.

Short Story: Stop Evolution in Its Tracks!

 “Stop Evolution in Its Tracks!” by John T. Sladek as published in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF

Quotes:

"Professor, are you absolutely sure ontogeny doesn't recapitulate phylogeny?"

I waited for the professor in a bland anteroom. The only unusual note was a large framed photo on the wall. It showed ants eating a red rose. The title, I saw, was "Paths Untaken."

Synopsis:

A man, presumably a reporter of some sort, is interviewing a creationist scientist who has set up an institute to debunk evolution. After meeting the professor the reporter sits in on a class where the professor shares several anecdotes intended to disprove evolution and show it to be a hoax. He also shares the life event that caused him to see through the hoax of evolution.

That event was him getting hit by a car that resulted in sufficient brain damage to cause him to have multiple hallucinations. After the class is over the reporter speaks privately with the professor about the professors plans for the future and he showed the reporter a project the institute was working on to prove the story of Noah's Ark.

The story ends with the reporter reminiscing about the Snopes trial. In the alternative history of the story it was not a trial about the teaching of evolution, but the criminal prosecution of a monkey names Snopes who possesed an opposable thumb, which was a blasphemous imitation of the human hand.

Thoughts:

This story is a comedy, but I didn't laugh once. Not now, and not many, many, moons ago when I was a callow agnostic youth who had never even thought to question evolution at that point and read it for the first time. There are many things I could say about the story, but that's the most important. As a comedy story it failed at it's most basic function, and it failed with a very sympathetic audience.

My reception of the story has not improved with age. The most interesting thing about the story is the second quote I put up. Unfortunately it never goes anywhere. And the first quote is a question that a student asks the professor and the way it's used is to imply it's a criticism of his anti-evolution philosophy that he can't answer. But it's based on an idea that had been debunked decades before the story was published! So it only works as the author intended if the reader is ignorant of science. 

This is the only story of Sladek's that I've ever read, so I don't want to draw any sweeping generalizations about his writing from it, but I do have to say it certainly hasn't made me eager to go out and read any of his other works.

Poem: Our share of night to bear

 Our share of night to bear, Our share of morning, 

Our blank in bliss to fill, Our blank in scorning. 

Here a star, and there a star, Some lose their way. 

Here a mist, and there a mist, Afterwards — day!

Dickinson, Emily. Collected Poems (AmazonClassics Edition) (pp. 5-6). Kindle Edition. 

Thoughts:

So far, I have to say I enjoy Emily's poems, but I can't say I really understand them. On a nonverbal level there's some understanding, but not anything I can really put into words.

Essay: The Amazon's Right Breast

 The Amazon's Right Breast by Tom Kratman was an essay included a collection of free nonfiction from 2011 released by Baen Books.

Quotes:

"Eros makes Mars his Bitch."

"It’s interesting, isn’t it, that in trying to equate racial integration with gender and gender-orientation integration, people in favor of the latter ignore the history of military racial integration."

Synopsis:

Primarily this essay is concerned with the author's opposition to integrating women in the combat arms of the military. It uses historical examples, both pro and con. But goes into detail of why some of the examples that have worked (for certain values of worked) in the past in other societies wouldn't work in a modern western society.

Thoughts: 

If I'd known what the subject of the essay was before I started it, I probably wouldn't have read it. Not because I disagree with the basic sentiment, but just the opposite. I not only agree, but I find that those on the other side of the issue are either too dishonest, or too stupid to have a constructive discussion about it. That's why my synopsis is a bit sparse to say the least. Overall it's well written and has some interesting examples, including some I wasn't aware of. That said, there are some boomerisms I found annoying. Overall though it is a very good work on the subject, just beware the boomer if you choose to read it.

Short Story: Time Fuze

 "Time Fuze" by Randall Garrett as published in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF

Quotes:

Commander Benedict took off his cap and looked at the damp stain in the sweatband. "Nevertheless, Doctor, it is damned unnerving to come out of ultradrive a couple of hundred million miles from the first star ever visited by man and have to turn tail and run because the damned thing practically blows up in your face."

Commander Benedict's mind whirled around the monstrousness of the whole thing like some dizzy bee around a flower. What if there had been planets around Centauri A? What if they had been inhabited? Had he, all unwittingly, killed entire races of living, intelligent beings?

Synopsis:

Man's first interstellar craft comes out of "ultradrive" around our nearest neighbor in space, only to find it starting to nova. The ship quickly moves off to a safe distance and the ship's commander and astronomer discuss the unlikelihood of the event while the crew set up the necessary equipment to study the rare phenomena in detail. 

Eventually the ship heads for home and the astronomer compiles the data they've collected. Mid-voyage he comes to the commander with some troubling conclusions. The odds against the nova happening when it did are even greater than originally thought, and he's come to the conclusion that it was their ship coming out of it's experimental drive that caused the nova. Using the distance of the other two stars in the Centauri system, which did not nova, they work out a safe distance for coming out of the drive near Sol.

As they continue on their way home the Commander has a horrible thought. What if entering the ultradrive has the same effect on a nearby star as exiting it does? It doesn't take them long to get an answer to this question...

Thoughts:

I'd encountered the name Randall Garrett before reading this story, and I think I've even read a couple of his other short stories, but it's been so long ago I don't remember for certain. He was very prolific in the 50's and 60's. 

This is a well written little story, with an interesting, if nasty premise. At least it's nasty if you're pro-space exploration. Which I certainly am and a fairly hefty majority of the SF audience of the time would've been. If you fall into that camp this would qualify as horror as well as science fiction, even though it lacks any of the standard tropes of horror.

Poem: Success is counted sweetest

 Success is counted sweetest 

By those who ne’er succeed. 

To comprehend a nectar 

Requires sorest need. 

Not one of all the purple host 

Who took the flag to-day 

Can tell the definition, 

So clear, of victory, 

As he, defeated, dying, 

On whose forbidden ear 

The distant strains of triumph 

Break, agonized and clear!

This is from the Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson available through Amazon Kindle.

I like it, but not as much as the last one of hers I read. This may be true, but I'd still rather be the one that suceeds.

Short Story: The Longest Science Fiction Story Ever Told

"The Longest Science Fiction Story Ever Told" by Arthur C. Clarke as published in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF

Quotes: 

Better luck next time!

 Sincerely,

Morris K. Mobius

Editor, Stupefying Stories

Synopsis:

There's not much to synopsize. The biographical blurb for the author is longer than the story itself. It's a recursive series translated into prose. So, a math joke. It's basically a repeating rejection letter.

Thoughts:

As a joke, it kinda falls flat for me. Maybe for someone super into math it would get a bigger laugh. Or any laugh at all. I've read other Clarke stories, and I have to say after reading them I never really thought of him as a humor writer. This story does nothing to change that. I have enjoyed other stories he's written, they were just, if not humorless, very light on the humor.