Weekly Short Stories: 1942 Science Fiction, Pt. 2

Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942) may be the best book in this retrospective anthology series looking back on the best in short science fiction.  Having said that, it's also true that many of the stories within tend to be rather long, approaching novella-length.  Of the three I'm discussing today, the first two take up a lot of pages and demand more of a commitment from the reader...but they are worth it...

THE PUSH OF A FINGER by Alfred Bester
It's early in the thirtieth century and society on Earth is in a state of balance, with scientists and statisticians secretly determining...in the Prog Building in Manhattan...what works and what doesn't.  They're biggest secret, which Carmichael, a hotshot newspaper reporter, manages to discover after infiltrating the organization, is the ability to predict distant future events with excruciatingly high levels of accuracy.  A crisis has occurred with a somber discovery: at a set time a thousand years later the universe will suddenly end...and the cause seems to be man-made and traceable back to the present.  A brilliant sci-fi mystery with a ridiculously silly ending...

ASYLUM by A.E. van Vogt
My favorite tale of the book, Asylum would more appropriately be deemed a science fiction horror story which involves extraterrestrial vampires and a super race of Galactic overseers.  Earth has not yet developed the credentials to join with the Galactics and their federation of worlds (sound familiar?), but they're keeping an observer around to keep an eye on things, his identity a secret.  Meanwhile the Dreeghs also have their sights set on Earth, but their motives are different: to harvest the blood and life energies of its inhabitants.  Two of them comprise the advance team...real bad-ass villains...and they hatch a plot to use another one of those hotshot newspaper reporters...this one named Leigh...to discover the Galactic Observer's identity so that they can eliminate him.  They suspect a scientist/inventor named Ungarn who lives on a meteorite near Jupiter to be their target and manipulate Leigh into leading them to their prize.  But there are plenty of plot twists and surprises awaiting everyone, especially the reader.  One of the best...and least expected...endings I've encountered in a short story...

PROOF by Hal Clement
There is a sub-genre of science fiction called "hard" science fiction in which the author, usually highly trained in the intricacies of science and/or technology, uses his or her knowledge to make the story more realistically plausible. Proof is one such example: the author, using details of subatomic and high-energy physics, paints a picture of life...including intelligent beings...existing IN the sun...and in other stars as well.  And yes, they have spaceships, too.  But what about the planets...and how would such entities perceive these accreted masses of heavier elements so foreign to the physics and chemistry of their native sun?  Another superb ending...did I not say that this may be the best book in the series?

Next week: more from 1942 in the world of short science fiction...

Just Finished Reading Beatlebone by Kevin Barry

In 2015 Irish fiction writer Kevin Barry came out with the novel Beatlebone, in which ex-Beatle John Lennon, in 1978, temporarily flees his domesticated lifestyle he has been living in New York City with wife Yoko and son Sean...he feels the desperate need to find and then stay for three days on a remote little Irish island he had bought eleven years earlier.  He plans to just sit there and scream and scream...a reference back to the Janov Primal Scream Therapy he had famously undergone with Yoko at the close of the Beatles era.  The problem John has...and one that dominates the flow of the story...is that although he had visited this island before in 1969, now he can't remember exactly which one it is of the hundreds out there.  He has an Irish character named Cornelius drive him around, steering away the clamoring press, finding lodgings, and introducing him to other usually very annoying characters.  The language in the story is stream-of-consciousness and difficult to follow as John lets out his thoughts and interacts with others.  There is actually very little said here about either the Beatles, John Lennon's former bandmates, or Yoko One and very much about not only his early childhood and his parents...but even his parents' lives before he was born.  One thing that struck me in Barry's fictionalized account was that folks in that part of the world believed in haunted places that sometimes distorted reality, even to the point of taking people to other places and/or times...I've read of this phenomenon before in other books.  And the notion that Lennon would just suddenly take off to a remote spot from his home has a factual basis: during his 1976-79 "retirement" from music-making while raising his little boy, Yoko and John immersed themselves in a kind of astrology in which she would abruptly assign him the task of briefly traveling to another part of the world and coming back...Barry referenced such a trip to Japan in this story.  But the author laid forth the proposition that John was suffering from musical writer's block and wanted to produce new material, hence this trip to his island.  The book's title Beatlebone reveals its meaning toward the story's end, which as usual I will refrain from giving away.  Later I read some very glowing, positive reviews of Beatlebone, but I have to admit that it came across to me like another self-indulgent version of the Beatles' critically-panned Magical Mystery Tour movie. Although I think that the music of the Beatles was terrific and groundbreaking, I never got into the personality cult mentality surrounding them.  That John Lennon was such a special, elevated person that his experiences and opinions transcended those of "ordinary" folks was never something I believed, but as a reader I felt I had to "play along" just to get through the story.  I didn't like it as much as others did, but if you like artsy, stream-of-consciousness types of literature, then this one's for you...

Patriots and Rams Advance to Super Bowl on February 3rd

In the National Football League playoffs yesterday, I watched both the National Conference championship game between Los Angeles and New Orleans and that of the American Conference with Kansas City going against New England.  Ordinarily I don't just sit there and watch entire games, but this time I did this that...with both of them.  They were very entertaining and suspenseful, both with anxiety-filled final moments in regulation and eventually going into overtime.  One of my teams won and one lost...ironically I feel a bit worse about the game "my" LA Rams squeaked out against the Saints, and all because of a horribly blown call near the end of regulation.  New Orleans had been driving downfield in a 20-20 tie and looking to run down the clock as they sought to take the lead and then deny Los Angeles any time to come back.  Quarterback Drew Brees threw a strong pass at receiver Tommylee Lewis just short of the end zone...just before the ball got to him Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman slammed and decked him, the ball flying on past them.  The officials made no pass interference call although it had to be one of the most blatant penalties I ever saw.  The result was that the Saints ran out of downs too early and had to settle for a field goal, after which Los Angeles had enough time left to march down the field and get one of their own, sending the game into overtime...which they won.  Well, I'm glad the Rams won, but not like that...

In the other game the New England Patriots beat the Kansas City Chiefs as the two teams, following slow offensive starts, together scored 38 points in the fourth quarter alone.  The Patriots won the crucial coin toss entering overtime, meaning that they would probably win since KC and New England were just going back and forth trading touchdowns at the end...and Pats quarterback Tom Brady executed a long, textbook winning drive.  I'm rooting for the Rams in February 3rd's Super Bowl...or should I say more accurately that I'm rooting against the Patriots...

Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse Tonight

Evan McMullin, one of the people I follow on Twitter, retweeted a posting by Space.com about tonight's lunar eclipse, visible from the Western Hemisphere...here's that website link. The moon will be at one of its closest points to Earth, which explains the "super" adjective, as it passes through our planet's shadow on the opposite side of the Sun...that's what a lunar eclipse is.  And lunar eclipses always occur during the moon's full phase...in January full moons are called "wolf moons".  During this eclipse the shaded part of the moon will still be visible, but a dim, dark "blood" red...hence the quirky title that the writer of this Space.com article, Elizabeth Howell, came up with.  She also gave a timetable for this eclipse, in Eastern Standard Time:

10:34 pm: Partial eclipse begins
11:41 pm: Total eclipse begins
12:12 am: Mid-eclipse
12:44 am: Total eclipse ends
1:51 pm: Partial eclipse ends

Tonight the skies here in northern Florida are expected to be clear...and cold.  I'm looking forward to checking it out...why don't you, too?

Just Finished Reading The Wishsong of Shannara by Terry Brooks

When fantasy fiction writer Terry Brooks completed his Shannara trilogy with The Wishsong of Shannara in 1985, I wonder if he foresaw writing some thirty-odd more spinoff novels and short stories based on it.  He has his share of loyal readers, but I was initially resistant to the series when the first book, titled The Sword of Shannara, seemed too derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.  But while recognizing that there will almost certainly be some borrowed themes from other fantasy series, Brooks in the second and third books of the trilogy wrote more original material.  The Wishsong of Shannara takes place a generation after the previous story as Wil and Eretria Ohmsford's daughter Brin and son Jair possess a special ability called the Wishsong...Jair's is limited to creating illusions but Brin can manipulate both mind and matter when she sings out the magic.  The parents are out of town just when the mysterious druid Allanon arrives and tells the brother and sister that evil is once again afoot, as evil murderous wraiths, allied with the gnomes and empowered by and subservient to the will of the Ildatch, a sentient book of dark magic, are in pursuit of them.  As the story develops, Brin and Jair find themselves on separate paths to try to destroy the Ildatch, which is hidden away in a protected marsh.  They each encounter allies who help them on their quests: much danger and high adventure mark this tale, as well as a lot of introspection and self-doubt among the characters.  My favorite character was the independent gnome tracker Slanter who after capturing Jair for the dark side ends up as his greatest protector.  Who, if any, will survive the ordeals and will they be able to fulfill their mission?  Guess you'll have to read it to find out...

Terry Brooks' Shannara trilogy reminded me of Isaac Asimov's Foundation science fiction series in that each successive volume jumped ahead in time instead of just being a direct continuation of the preceding book...I kind of liked that: each installment is a complete story in itself.  Now that I'm finished with the original series, I may from time to time look into some other Shannara series that Brooks wrote over the ensuing decades...  

Quote of the Week...from Marilyn vos Savant

Be able to cite three good qualities of every relative or acquaintance that you dislike.
                                                               ---Marilyn vos Savant

Marilyn vos Savant is probably most known for her weekly quiz/advice column in Parade magazine, inserted in numerous Sunday newspapers.  She's credited as having an extremely high IQ, for what that's worth, and doesn't mince words about her opinions on a wide range of subjects...some of these I'm not terribly in agreement with, to put it diplomatically.  Yet she does have a lot of wise quotes, and I picked the one above because it goes counter to popular sentiment today.  Whether it's politics, reality TV, social media, school, the workplace, or any other venue, people tend to vent negatively about others in their lives or the news without couching their criticisms with some praise and understanding.  Trying to see things from the other guy's viewpoint...which is empathy...is crucial to maintaining a balanced view of others, especially those we dislike.  We're all mixed bags with good and bad...Marilyn's advice rings true to me: instead of harping on how bad someone else is, why not put your time to better use and see them for their positive traits?  Some folks in my life are disagreeable because they don't like me either, and can probably list all sorts of reasons for this.  I can't make everyone like me, and I don't want to anyway.  And I can't always like others, either.  But everyone's got something to appreciate and recognizing that fact can potentially point to improved relationships between us...

Work, Pain, and the Politics of High Drama

The last few days for me have been a bit distracting...I've been learning and getting used to a new job assignment at work, suffering from a nagging backache, and naturally...just when I wanted to get off from work and rest and recover...a sudden, excessive amount of overtime.  Well, I think I have my new assignment down pretty well, the back is much better (but still sore), and that overtime thankfully dried up for the time being.  Still, I think I'd better wait a few days before I am ready to resume any sort of running.  As for working extra hours, part of that is my own responsibility since I signed up to get overtime: I'd just like it in more moderate amounts, please...

In spite of work and physical pain, I've been noticing what's going down in the news and am dismayed by the total level of disfunction in our elected national government.  The latest chapter in this nonsense has President Trump abruptly cancelling a secret trip by House Speaker Pelosi to visit our troops serving overseas...and in doing so betraying the secret publicly.  This is in apparent retaliation to Pelosi's hesitation in allowing him to deliver his State of the Union address on January 29th if the government is still shut down.  She has the authority to do so...the President is obligated by the U.S. Constitution to give Congress an annual report on the state of the union, but he can accomplish this with a written report.  Still, I'd like to see him deliver the speech in person...his State of the Union address last year was one of his best speeches.  Too bad Mr. Trump is incapable of sticking with a script...if ever there was someone who needs to, it's him...

And I'm sure there will be more high drama coming out of the White House, since being a drama queen is one of the things our president is truly competent in and is something that his "base" seems to relish.  What saddens me the most about all this is that I happen to agree with some of his proposals and policies, but he seems more interested in making everything an issue about himself, first and foremost.  Well, there's not a whole lot I can do about that...I feel sorry for all the federal workers who are not being paid and for those Americans who are not receiving important services due to the shutdown...

Weekly Short Stories: 1942 Science Fiction, Pt. 1

I continued my look back at old science fiction short stories by reading the first four in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 4 (1942). This volume contained some amazing...and mostly lengthy...tales, some of which speak to us in our world today.  Here are the first four...

THE STAR MOUSE by Fredric Brown
Old science fiction stories are often full of eccentric, reclusive scientist/inventors with their quirky little projects.  A common theme back then was one who designs the first rocket to outer space...Fredric Brown used it in this story as a kindly old scientist first catches Mitkey, a little mouse formerly living undetected in his home, and then sends him up on a rocket.  While in space an unknown small asteroid, inhabited by very small, intelligent beings, intercepts Mitkey's flight and they infuse the little mammal with human-level intelligence and alter his vocal apparatus to allow him to speak...which he does in the scientist's thick German accent.  When he returns to Earth and asks someone for directions to his old home in New Jersey...well, you can see the farcical direction this is heading...

THE WINGS OF NIGHT by Lester del Rey
Two space workers soft-crash-land their ship on the moon after one of its parts malfunctions.  As they approach a very smooth area to land, the ground suddenly opens up and they go deep under the surface to the distant bottom...where an ancient intelligent being, the last of his kind, lives and has a desperate need for his race's survival.  Can the two parties communicate to help each other out of their predicaments? And what about one of the men, who tends to display bigotry toward beings different from himself?

COOPERATE--OR ELSE! by A.E. van Vogt
It is the future and humans have explored and settled far off into the galaxy, including a place called Carson's Planet. On it live the ezwal, apparently unintelligent animals that provide them food.  On a spaceship a captive ezwal, revealing its species' truly intelligent nature, has taken over the ship and killed all but one of its people...a Professor Jamieson, who escapes on down to a jungle, sea, and monster-infested nightmare of a planet with the ezwal in hot pursuit.  The ezwals want to expel humans from their planet, but to do so involves no one knowing of their intelligence...so Jamieson has to die.  But the professor realizes that in order for either to survive on this extremely hostile world, they must cooperate with one another.  This story was written at the precise moment in history during World War II in which the Democratic allied nations added another ally: the totalitarian Soviet Union, which was suffering a brutal invasion from Hitler's Nazi regime...

FOUNDATION by Isaac Asimov
I've already read and thoroughly enjoyed the five core books of Asimov's Foundation series, in which humanity, so far off in the distant future that they've forgotten their planet of origin, lives under the rule of a galactic empire. A"psychohistorian", Hari Selden, envisions that empire's eminent breakup and subsequent eons of brutal, chaotic infighting before civilization can be restored.  His strategy to drastically shorten this dark period involves setting up two scientific outposts on the opposite ends of the galaxy...but the very scientists he dispatches are ignorant of his true intentions.  Before the novels starting coming out in the 1950s Asimov had already laid out the groundwork in the 1940s with a series of short stories...this was the first.  Great ending!

Just Finished Reading Elevation by Stephen King

Last year Stephen King came out with an unusually small book...I would have missed it had I not one day been browsing the shelves of my local Books-a-Million.  I quickly put my name on a waiting list and checked it out from my library.  The book consists of the title novella plus a short story titled Laurie.  As for the story Elevation, it reminded me a little of Thinner, a much earlier novel King wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.  In that tale a man who gets on the bad side of some gypsies is cursed with losing weight, no matter how much he eats.  Elevation's premise is similar: Scott Carey, a resident of that infamous fictional Maine town of Castle Rock, is progressively losing weight as well...but his paunchy, overweight appearance remains the same and he keeps feeling better!  Meanwhile a married lesbian couple is having difficulty overcoming the prejudice of the townsfolk as they generally shun their new Mexican-themed gourmet restaurant.  It is the interaction and emerging relationship between Carey and the women, along with the foreseen logical ending of his weight loss, that dictate the flow of the story. I enjoyed it without having to commit very much time to getting through it, but in the end I wished it were longer (and had a different ending)…

The short story Laurie is about a recently widowed elderly man living way down yonder in Florida.  His concerned sister gets him a little puppy for companionship: at first he objects, especially when confronted with Laurie's "accidents", but then the two bond.  And there is an adventure at the end waiting for them as they go for a walk one day...

Neither Elevation nor Laurie would make my top ten list of Stephen King stories, but for the characters he introduces with such feeling the reading is worth it.  Sometimes the weird things he makes happen to them don't make a lot of sense, but I can definitely see myself and others I know within those characters' personalities.  Check it out...

Super Bowl Teams Finalized Next Sunday

It seems like I'm following more of the NFL playoffs this year than I usually do...that's interesting seeing how all three Florida teams experienced losing seasons and missed them.  Yet I enjoyed some of the scenarios, including defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia somehow getting into the playoffs and both Los Angeles teams as well.  Teams I dislike such as New England and New Orleans got first-round byes and then went on from there to the conference championship round.  Sadly, Seattle, a team I've grown to follow over the years largely due to their head coach Pete Carroll and versatile quarterback Russell Wilson, bowed out early to Dallas.  Well, with the Eagles gone as well, my favorite of the four remaining teams has to be Kansas City with its brilliant second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes.  They'll be hosting the Patriots in the American Conference championship game next Sunday the 20th at 6:40 PM, broadcast on CBS.  Earlier that day will feature the National Conference finale with New Orleans at home against the Los Angeles Rams, the game set for 3:05 PM with Fox carrying it.  My ideal scenario would have a Chiefs-Rams Super Bowl, but the Patriots and Saints, each franchise with its legacy of cheating and subsequent punishment, will probably prevail next Sunday...in which case I'd be forced to pull for New Orleans against despised New England.  But we'll see...

The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Me Still Hobbling Onward

The day after I wrote on this blog my tentative plan to enter an Ocala long-distance running race a week from now, my sporadic lower back pain returned, causing me to hobble around in much the same way as comedian Tim Conway's "old man" character.  I'm confident I'll recover as I have a number of. times in the past and eventually get back to hitting the road, albeit not to Ocala or anywhere else very soon.  In the meantime I'm looking at ancient rock bands like the Rolling Stones and The Who and marvel at them as they keep on touring and (very occasionally) recording.  It's a bit ironic that with the latter, their creative force, Pete Townshend, had left the band in 1983 because, like with the Beatles in 1967, he was tired of touring and wanted The Who just to be a studio band...the others strongly disagreed with him on this.  Now he's all over the place touring, and the last studio album the band released was in 2006.  But wait, they just announced a brand-new album to come out later this year!  Meanwhile, the Stones keep on touring and touring without any plans of coming out with any new original material...but with more than 300 songs in their catalog why should they?  And, after all, they did release in 2016 an album devoted to covers of old blues songs...

Oh, by the way, Paul McCartney, not to be outdone by his old rivals in the music business, has come out with yet another LP, this one titled Egypt Station.  I didn't care all that much for his music after he left the Beatles, although his first two solo releases, McCartney and Ram, were very high-quality. Yet I wonder if I shouldn't have given him more of a listen in his later works...the last song he recorded that I heard was The World Tonight from his 1997 Flaming Pie album and I thought it would have stood well as a Beatles track...

I'm still listening to the radio and trying to like the current output of "hits", but to little avail.  I'm thinking of making a listening project this year to go through the collective output of artists like McCartney, The Who, Rolling Stones, and others...including those later albums in their careers that never get any radio exposure.  And one more "by the way": Pearl Jam's releasing a new album later this year, too.  I have a strong suspicion that the worst songs of these legends of rock are still on a higher level than most of the "popular" music played today...
 

Just Finished Reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

When I go to my local public library I often go to the audiobooks section, often coming across books recorded in the Playaway format.  Playaway audiobooks consist of a small cartridge resembling a large MP3 player...you supply your own earphones and AAA battery.  The other day I checked out a Playaway edition of American Indian writer Sherman Alexie's young adult novel titled The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, first published in 2007.  It is told in the first person by a Spokane Indian boy, Arnold "Junior" Spirit, describing his life from his hydrocephalic condition as an infant...causing early problems and an enlarged head...and on throughout his youth in the Spokane reservation in eastern Washington state as he deals with widespread bullying and other issues.  One of his reservation school teachers notes that he is bored with the low level of education provided there and suggests he attend a "white" public school in a nearby town...Arnold does so and becomes shunned as a traitor by others in his reservation, including his best friend Rowdy.  The story continues on from there...you'll have to read it for yourself to see where it goes...

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was a very compelling and alternately funny and sad view of what it's like to grow up on a remote Indian reservation...I've since read that the author himself is part Spokane and shared much of his own life's story in the novel.  Sadly, I also read that last year some aspiring women writers came out with complaints against him for hitting on them during some writing workshops that he was involved with.  Alexie apologized for his forward behavior, but many in the literary community still have shunned him and even withdrawn past awards.  No way do I condone his past behavior, but at the same time I think that his works should stand on their own merit.  One problem I have with celebrityhood in our culture is the tendency of people to either idolize their favorites or vilify those they dislike, instead of realizing that we're all cut from the same mold and while our misdeeds deserve criticism and sometimes punishment (and sometimes severe punishment), none of us are truly perfect and blameless.  People are complex entities and there's good and bad in all of us, believe it or not.  Sherman Alexie is clearly a flawed man and he admits it...the irony of some of those who have made him into a literary pariah of sorts is that they had earlier lauded his portrayal of people in general as being flawed as well...

Quote of the Week...from Mitch McConnell

Remember me? I am the guy that gets us out of shutdowns. It's a failed policy.     ...Mitch McConnell

The United States Senate's Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, made the above quote on August 28th, 2014 while he was still the Minority Leader and Tea Party activists had steered the House of Representatives to shutting down the federal government back then during the Obama administration.  But then is then and now is now and McConnell has turned 180 degrees, now being the impediment in the Senate to allowing a vote on an appropriations bill that would reopen the government and which it had already previously approved, 92-6.  The Democratic-controlled House just passed the identical bill, sending it back to the Senate, which the Republicans under McConnell control 53-47.  The bill would probably not pass by the same overwhelming margin this time around, but still enough for a two thirds margin large enough to override a Trump veto.  The ultimate question then would be whether enough Republicans on the House side would be willing to also vote to override the veto...I'm doubtful about this.  Still, the Majority Leader's quote demonstrates his utter lack of principle as the only thing that matters to him is total partisan victory on whatever issue happens to be at hand...

I'm sure most Americans are very frustrated by this whole business of shutting down the government over a proposed security wall on our southern border.  I think a long-stretching visible barrier would be a good, important component to our border policy and completely reject the notion by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that it is "immoral".  But I do not accept the President's decision to close down the federal government indefinitely, putting so many people in financial distress, in order to achieve "national security"...it's diminished us, not strengthened us.  Neither Trump nor Pelosi seem to be in any mood to compromise, and now it looks as if Trump will declare a national emergency to get his wall funded and built.  To all those who think such a thing would be the act of an authoritarian dictator, ABC News listed some national emergencies proclaimed by the previous three sitting presidents, six by Bill Clinton, eleven by George W. Bush, and ten by Barack Obama.  And Donald Trump has already declared three national emergencies...did you know that?  So maybe this could be an avenue to eventually restore government funding...if the courts don't block it, that is. If you've read this blog, you already know that I am no fan of Trump, but he is the president and as such has as one of his highest duties the protection of America.  Maybe we can disagree on his conclusions, but we should defer to him on this as our president, like him or not...

College Football Playoffs Over, NFL's Continuing

Now that Clemson has won its second major college football championship over Alabama in three years, it finally looks as if Nick Saban's firm hold on college football supremacy is over...at least for now.  Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has established his own claim to the best college football coach...and he's a lot, lot more approachable and likable than the Alabama coach.  Plus, unlike Saban, he didn't abandon a prior commitment to another team in mid-contract in order to get his "dream" job.  In honor of Dabo, I give Clemson honorary status as the "third" Florida team in the Atlantic Coast Conference and plan to support them next year...

In the NFL, the playoffs are down to eight remaining teams...in the wild card round last week only the Philadelphia-Chicago game went my way, and just barely as the Bears placekicker muffed a last-minute winnable field goal following an improbable Eagle comeback.  Philly is playing this Sunday at New Orleans (4:40 PM) while the other Sunday game has New England hosting the LA Chargers (1:05 PM).  On Saturday at 4:35 PM Indianapolis will visit Kansas City while the Los Angeles Rams will be at home against Dallas in a game starting at 8:15.  For these four games I'm rooting for Philadelphia, the Chargers, Kansas City, and the Rams. Although the best-case scenario for me would see an Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl, an all-Los Angeles championship game stands as a tantalizing possibility.  And that would be a kind of justice, wouldn't it, after all the years that this large, great city had been deprived of even one National Football League franchise...

Weekly Short Stories: 1941 Sci-Fi, Part 4

I conclude my look back at 1941's short science fiction with the final five entries in the anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 3 (1941).

SOLAR PLEXUS by James Blish
Blish, who wrote several of the Star Trek books that came out after the TV series, was already an established science fiction writer for decades...this is one of his first stories.  Brant Kittinger, a lone scientist stationed at the edge of our solar system, is abducted by a ship run by robots...robots imprinted with the memories and neural circuitry of humans, most notably their leader, the late Murray Bennett.  Only one problem: they've lost their reason for what they're doing and Bennett's robot wants to place Kittinger into a robot to help guide them.  Horrified, the scientist has to think fast about getting out of his predicament.  Not one of my favorite stories...

NIGHTFALL by Isaac Asimov
Arguably Asimov's best short story of all time, Nightfall is set in a different star system with six suns...the planet in question, populated by humans with a comparable technology and civilization to ours, never sees nighttime or even darkness because there are always suns to keep everything in light.  But now only one, faint sun is above the horizon...and an astronomer has learned from a cultist group that a heretofore unknown planet is about to eclipse it, causing planetwide darkness for several hours and bringing out the multitude of mysterious stars to vision.  In the past...every two thousand years or so...advanced societies on the planet had suddenly and inexplicably disintegrated into chaos and civilization had to rebuild: was this periodic phenomenon the cause?  Asimov examines not only the phobia of being in darkness that such a situation would create for people unaccustomed to it, but also how complex such a solar system would be and how this would make learning about forces such as gravity much more difficult.  An excellent tale on many levels...

A GNOME THERE WAS by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore
Kuttner and Moore were a husband-wife writing team that often wrote under the pseudonym "Lewis Padgett".  This story is about a clueless labor agitator from California who goes uninvited into a Pennsylvania mine to organizer workers there, only to get himself lost and then turned into a gnome.  The gnomes, you see, live in those mountains and have their own society and culture...they fight a lot, eats rocks, bathe in mud...and work, work, work.  Our hero desperately looks for a way to become human again and escape the gnomes.  This story tries very hard to be funny, but I just thought it was awfully annoying.  Not one of the talented Kuttner and Moore's best works...

SNULBUG by Anthony Boucher
Another speculative sci-fi story about the nature of time.  A medical researcher, needing funding for a new lab, has conjured up a demon to help him get his stingy ex-boss to provide the money.  But the diminutive demon, named Snulbug, doesn't look or act as if he's capable of doing much of anything.  The scientist, looking to the future, sends him out to get a copy of the next day's newspaper in hopes of finding something he can use today.  He then discovers that any attempts to change the flow of time will be rebuffed...a different tactic will be needed.  I thought it was strange that someone who was trained in the scientific method would be summoning a demon through magic, and it's here that I have a big problem with this story...

HEREAFTER, INC. by Lester del Rey
An overly pious and self-righteous man deliberately denies himself the pleasures of living, believing that in the afterlife he will be rewarded for his virtuous lifestyle.  He looks down on everyone else, especially his free-living boss.  One day he wakes up to discover that although he still lives in his miserable, scant apartment, his workplace and the city outside have suddenly changed.  This is a call to those who think that they will be rewarded in heaven for their good works and who wish ill on others who don't meet up to their own extremely self-righteous standards...

Next week I begin looking at short science fiction stories from the year 1942...

Looking to Run 15K or Half-Marathon in Ocala on the 20th

Back in the 2011 Ocala Marathon, which featured a course running through beautiful horse country south of the city, I managed to painfully finish it despite an IT-band injury just below my right knee causing sharp pain whenever I ran.  I had gotten to about the 10-mile mark with no real trouble, but that pain then began to make itself known and intensified to the point when I had to alternate short runs with short walks...walking at a moderate pace caused little pain.  By the 19-mile mark I told a volunteer that I was ready to quit the race...she encouraged me to walk out the rest of it so that I could say that I finished a marathon.  Well, I did just that, finishing in around 6 hours.  After that I abandoned marathon races and focused on half-marathons as my distance race of choice...I've completed 11 of them so far, including the Ocala Half-Marathon in 2013 when I finished with my second-best time for that distance at 1:55:20. Since then I've never gone back down there and the race organizers themselves abandoned the marathon event, transforming their annual January race into a choice between the half-marathon, 15K, 10K, and 5K distances.  This year it's coming up on Sunday the 20th, and after being informed that I can wait until race-day morning to register on-site, I'm seriously considering going down there.  But which race would I run...

Ideally, running and finishing a half-marathon is what I want, but I finished a local 15K (9.3 miles) race a month ago and kind of like that distance, too.  Next month I plan to run my 6th Five Points Half-Marathon here in Gainesville (I hear they're going to have a completely different race course, sad to say), so I can defer a half-marathon run to that time.  No, I'm thinking maybe that a 15K in Ocala might do me well this time around, but I probably won't know for sure which race to run until I get there...

About the 2020 Presidential Campaign, Even This Early

Within just a week after the 116th U.S. Congress was sworn in following the 2018 midterm elections, it looks as if the 2020 presidential campaign season has already begun...unless of course you recognize that incumbent president Donald Trump already seems to be in a perpetual campaign.  Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has been campaigning through Iowa, site of the first voting event in 2020, the Iowa Caucuses. She's delivered some fiery, passionate speeches and that's good: I like her.  Only problem is that, at this most early stage in the campaign, it sounds as if she's already lost her voice.  And former vice-president Joe Biden just announced that he will soon be revealing whether or not he will be seeking the Democratic nomination for president.  I'm predisposed to supporting ol' Joe, but I fear that he might not have the tenacity to stick it out through a brutal primary campaign season, much less the general election campaign should he garner the nomination...he's always making a major deal about wanting to focus on his family, as if none of the others have their own families.  It's one thing for him to have sat out the primary season in 2008 and only have to campaign in the general elections of that year and 2012 as Barack Obama's running mate...this time around he'll be facing several candidates politically left of him and bent on portraying him as being too moderate.  I'm also keeping a close eye on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's medical trials of late...she's been contending with cancer and, although she said she'd like to stay on the Court another five years, you can't always chart your own future course with accuracy...especially with the kind of medical issues she's been experiencing.  In 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia passed away during the Democratic Obama administration, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to consider the president's nominee, Merrick Garland, deferring Scalia's replacement to the winner of that year's election...eventually Republican Donald Trump as he picked Neil Gorsuch instead.  Should Ginsburg or anyone else leave the Supreme Court in 2020, will McConnell stick to his stated and already-implemented "principle" and defer that nomination as well to the winner of the 2020 election?  If I were a betting man, I'd wager that he would weasel out of it all with some lame excuse and quickly allow Trump to handpick another conservative to stack the court.  But it's all still a little early, isn't it...

Just Finished Reading A Cry in the Night by Mary Higgins Clark

Mary Higgins Clark has written many bestselling suspense novels...for some reason I've only read one of them that I can remember, and that was a few years ago.  I recently had the opportunity to read one of her earlier books, A Cry in the Night, from 1982.  It's about a divorced woman with two daughters whose ex-husband keeps hitting on her for money and criticizing her life choices while reneging on his child support obligations.  She meets an emerging young artist while she is working for a Manhattan art gallery. They marry and move back to Minnesota, to his childhood small town on the edge of the woods there...unfortunately her ex has moved there as well and his continuing, unwelcome pursuit of her is starting gossip among the townsfolk.  As the months follow, she discovers disturbing aspects to her new husband's overly-controlling behavior toward her, his callousness about life, and his obsession with his long-dead mother that cause a rift between the two as she tries to show more self-determination in their relationship.  It all eventually leads to a frightening climax, previewed by the scene in the story's opening chapter.  I felt that for the escapist, suspenseful entertainment it provided, A Cry in the Night was a good, short novel, well written and unpretentious in its ambitions.  I like to read books like this from time to time and plan to check out other books by this prolific and skilled writer...

My Preferences for the 2018 NFL Playoffs

In 2018 I was convinced that although the Philadelphia Eagles had enjoyed a storybook regular season in the National Football League, they would sadly go nowhere in the playoffs after their start quarterback Carson Wentz was injured.  Shows how much I know about football: backup QB Nick Foles stepped right in and led the team to perhaps the most exciting Super Bowl victory ever, over the New England Patriots...by far my most hated team in the league.  So as the wild card games take place this weekend, I will wisely make no predictions...but that doesn't mean I won't express my preferences...

The following is how I rank the twelve NFL playoff teams according to my liking, not necessarily how good they are:

1 SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
2 PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
3 KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
4 BALTIMORE RAVENS
5 LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
6 LOS ANGELES RAMS
7 CHICAGO BEARS
8 DALLAS COWBOYS
9 HOUSTON TEXANS
10 NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
11 INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
12 NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

And here are the matchups for today and tomorrow:

Today:
INDIANAPOLIS @ HOUSTON, 4:35 PM on ESPN
SEATTLE @ DALLAS, 8:15 PM on FOX

Tomorrow:
LA CHARGERS @ BALTIMORE, 1:05 PM on CBC
PHILADELPHIA @ CHICAGO, 4:40 PM on NBC

So consequently I want Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, and Philadelphia to win these wild-card games.  As for the following week in the playoffs, the lowest seed wild card winners in each conference will play the #1 seeds (Kansas City in the AFC and New Orleans in the NFC) with the other wild card winners playing the #2 seeds (New England in the AFC and the LA Rams in the NFC).  The only teams I feel any sense of loyalty to are the Seahawks and Eagles...may their games be blowout victories.   And I want to see the Patriots lose big in their game next week.  Other than that, I'd just like to watch some exciting, close, and well-played games...

Ran My First Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Parkrun is an international organization that holds running events in local parks...Gainesville has its own Parkrun in Depot Park at Main Street and SW 4th Street.  Timed 5K runs are held each and every Saturday morning and there is no entry fee.  To participate and have your run timed and recorded you need to register at their website (here's the link: [parkrun]) and then print out the six barcodes you get, taking one of them with you to the race.  This morning was my first Parkrun as well as my first visit to Depot Park.  There were 41 runners and walkers participating this time around, and the parking was no problem.  The course is a meandering loop around the park and involves running almost four laps, always on a paved surface and with interesting scenery to look at as well as some mild slopes that are a refreshing change from the flatness of my own neighborhood streets.  I liked the run and the park...this merits return trips, although I can't say I enjoy getting up early on Saturday morning for a 7:30 run.  I finished with a leisurely 30:00 time and was apparently the oldest man in it although some women exceeded me in age...here's a link to the results page [results].  This morning when the run began it was 51 degrees with 82% humidity. The events depend on volunteers, so somewhere down the line if I continue with Parkrun I'll probably pitch in as well.  And they are friendly to both runners and walkers...that's good since Melissa likes long walks and I plan to walk with her whenever she comes along...