Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 11

Time for another look back at the year 1997 in short sci-fi, as revealed in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection and spotlighting series editor Gardner Dozois' picks. Reading the following two stories reminded me of how much I liked and admired the meticulously-crafted scenes in the movie The Godfather, Part II...especially the one in which Michael Corleone pays a visit to his rival, gangster financier Hyman Roth, at the latter's south Florida home.  I could almost swear the dude lived in the old West Hollywood neighborhood where I grew up in the sixties, it was done so well.  And that's the problem I see in stories (like the two below) that bend reality into alternative, virtual ones...I think it's harder to capture reality on paper or the screen while the more fantastic creations in science fiction give the author more literary license but are more difficult to visualize.  But how about those stories, anyway...

NEVERMORE by Ian R. Macleod

Gustav, a painter (artist) residing in a future Paris, spends most of his time in the virtual worlds instead of the "foreal" world of what you and I would term "reality".  He is despondent over the death of his love Eleanor, yet he sees her often...and fully vibrant...in virtuality.  What is real and what isn't?...it's easy to get confused and lost in this tale.  Yet although we're not yet at that stage with virtual technology, I think a lot of us have gone over the proverbial cliff with regards to designing our own personal realities, especially concerning the personas presented on social media...

OPEN VEINS by Simon Ings

The virtual world in this story...based more or less on a "future" closer to the time when it was written, is a place people can literally plug themselves into...and make real, grave changes in the world if not checked.  So it's all hush-hush, "black-ops" secret government stuff, yet one former worker has somehow slipped into the virtual network, apparently committing suicide while in it.  The protagonist/investigator must find out what she was up to, who helped her...and then contain it all from leaking out.  Along the way he gets maybe a little too involved with the couple residing there...

Next week: more from '97...

Storm System off Coast of Carolinas

This Monday morning we have a weather phenomenon that looks like a tropical storm and acts like a tropical storm...only the authorities have decided that it isn't one after all.  Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, also known as PTC8, is swirling like a tropical storm just off the coast of where South Carolina meets North Carolina.  At this writing it has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, well over the minimum threshold for giving a name to this system.  In any event, it is expected to crash ashore later today, already causing coastal flooding and storm surge.  Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Gordon, no harm to anyone except in a stray boat, has diminished to a tropical depression.  In northern Florida the past few weeks, it has been as if we were in a continual storm system...without the winds but with plenty of rain.  People just stopped mowing their lawns because of the high water level in the ground.  Yesterday I managed to mow our front and back yards but one section was nothing but a soggy, mucky mess.  Well, maybe that'll do for another month.  In the meantime, I'm happy we're not being besieged by hurricanes as predicted at the start of this Atlantic tropical storm season...but I am sick of this ongoing crappy weather, still the same...

Walked Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning

Today, on another Saturday morning in Gainesville and the third week in a row for a UF Gator home football game...with the accompanying crowded streets and coffee shops...I did my periodic speed-walk during the Depot Parkrun 5K, held at that park a few blocks south of downtown.  It was a steamy and foggy 74 degrees with 100% humidity, but that never bothered me with my walking.  Before the race they were celebrating the 250th Parkrun here in Gainesville...that's pretty cool.  A lot of people were out there, and even another speed-walker, a middle-age woman whom I had never seen before.  She passed me early on and I managed to keep pace with her until, after three of the four required laps, she finished...either tired or mistaken.  In any event, I wish more participants tried walking the course at a fast pace, but, alas, there I was pushing hard through the final lap alone.  I finished with a time of 39:15, not my best for walking but I had slackened off of my training this past week because of a doctor visit and anticipated testing...you can view this week's race results by clicking HERE...

Quote of the Week...from Rob Dial

Let action and routine drive your life, not your emotions.         ---Rob Dial

Rob Dial is the creator and host of the podcast Mindset Mentor, which addresses issues in personal development.  He began one recent episode with the above quote, which he attributed to no one else...hence I'm giving Dial credit for it until further notice.  It's a simple concept, but one that few of us...at least me...consistently adopt for our lives.  I think there's another one that goes with this, dealing with how the quality of our lives depends on the brief pause between our triggers and cues and the actions we take in response to them...let's see, here it is, by Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response is our growth and freedom."  The first quote deals with a proactive approach, the latter with how we react to circumstances.  With both of them, I think I could do much better with how I handle daily living...

About the Tedious Presidential Debates

Everybody in social and mass media is abuzz about the recent debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris...at least that's how they'd like us to think.  I'm guessing that you're not all that much into that kind of nonsense...and I'm certainly not.  I can go back to 2016 when Trump debated Hillary Clinton...and in my estimation, she clearly won and her poll numbers soared.  Then FBI Director James Comey infamously decided to interfere in the campaign at the most crucial moment and, with great fanfare, announced he was reopening an investigation into, of all things, Clinton's emails.  This was happening among the opposition's cries of "Lock her up!", so Comey knew that what he was doing was interference and did it anyway.  Yet in 2024 it's apparently okay for their champion to be a 34-count convicted felon!  So no, I don't care about debates and discount their usefulness, although to be fair the previous one did get Biden to bow out.  I recently listened to someone recount their experiences listening to Tuesday evening's debate after I myself had studiously avoided it...and was affirmed in that avoidance.  If by this time you haven't figured out what you're going to do in this year's presidential election, I don't know what to say to you.  But then again, these elections always seem to hinge on how the stupid, emotion-driven pain-in-the-ass last-minute undecided voters sway, don't they...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 10

This week I managed to read a couple more stories from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and containing material first published in the year 1997.  Without any further ado, here are my reactions...

LETHE by Walter Jon Williams

In a future humanity where people can have multiple copies made of themselves and be broken down and built back up...molecule by molecule...by advanced nanotechnology, a man grieves for the loss of his female mate who died in a deep space accident.  He seeks solace through his "sibs", that is, his other living copies, but they and their mates...the same copies as his lost partner...turn out to be individuals in their own right and quite different in outlook from him.  I look at this fictional scenario and hope it never happens.  Life extension, yes, but the copies aspect, a big NO.  I never could latch on to the notion that my subjective identity can be artificially copied and transferred to the new, manufactured physical version of myself, like those Star Trek "Beam me up, Scotty" transporters...

WINTER FIRE by Geoffrey A. Landis 

It is a future time in Salzburg, Austria, and that long-peaceful city is besieged in a war of attrition between advanced pan-Slavic forces and the more western-oriented defenders.  Written in the middle of the brutal wars of the 1990s involving the former Yugoslavia states of Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, it is a commentary on how these horrible situations are contained while just a few miles away life goes on as usual.  In "our" world, Salzburg, although near the turmoil, is happily insulated from it.  I think that's what the author was driving at here: the choices the outside world makes that keep such horrible, genocidal conflicts going...and separated from themselves.  Also, how most of the victims of war within the general population have no notion as to why there is a war in the first place, as it takes on a mindless, all-consuming momentum of its own...

Next week: more from '97...

About the Recent US Open and Tennis in General

This past weekend the US Open professional tennis tournament, taking place in the Flushing Meadows complex in Queens, New York, concluded with the women and men finals.  Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner, two of the favorites, took the titles in each category and I'm happy with that.  Actually, I'm happy with whoever wins, quite the opposite of the typical fanatically partisan fan...and I don't give a hoot about which country they are from.  These players all work hard to perfect their craft, and this is the big opportunity for them to display their efforts to the world...good for them.  I will say that the sport of tennis is extremely competitive, more so than, say, running, swimming or golf.  In those sports, one can gauge their progress and success by their finishing times or by how many strokes they take to complete the course.  With tennis, though, the pertinent statistics are almost completely dependent on the direct competition...if your opponent is playing extraordinarily well, then you're going to look worse regardless of how well you're playing.  I'd like to follow tennis more...maybe I'll check out the Tennis Channel from time to time to see what's going on.  As for my own level of playing, let's just say that I did complete a beginner's class in the sport while at college (in 1975) and have played very little since...

"PTC-6" to Become Francine Soon Today

This cyclone at the western end of a protracted stationary summer weather front spanning the western Gulf of Mexico through northern Florida...arcing through Louisiana...is predicted to be named Tropical Storm Francine sometime today.  Its maximum sustained winds are already at 50 mph...tropical storm strength...and it is forecast to develop into a substantial hurricane before eventually making landfall along the western US Gulf Coast.  At this writing, they're just calling it "PTC-6", or "Potential Tropical Cyclone Six".  Doesn't matter, I'm just wondering which Weather Channel meteorologists will be stationed at the target locations like Corpus Christi and Houston...Paul Goodloe has already been out there in New Orleans "braving" the heavy rains there.  This 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, prediction to be a strong one with many named storms, has been pretty much on hold for the past few weeks with dust from the Sahara stymieing tropical storm development in the eastern Atlantic.  But maybe things are about to change...

Our Weekend Beach Visit

Melissa and I enjoyed our outing to Daytona Beach this weekend...we just got back into Gainesville.  There didn't seem to be very many people out there, and that suited us just fine.  The beach was fine for walking, and the swimming pool at our hotel was usually empty and we used it during our brief stay.  I'd like to say it's nice to be back, but frankly I'd rather be extending my stay over there...

Happy Anniversary, My Sweet Melissa

I'd like to wish my wonderful, dear and beautiful wife Melissa a very happy anniversary.  We've been married for 38 fantastic years today! I love you so much, Sweetheart!

Ran Florida Track Club's "Is It Fall?" Four-Mile Race This Morning

This morning I decided to skip the usual Depot Parkrun 5K event and instead switch over into Florida Track Club mode, running their "Is It Fall?" four-mile race.  It starts and finishes at Squirrel Ridge Park on Williston Road close to US 441 on the south side of Gainesville.  For almost the entire race, the course has us running the backroads of SW 17th Terrace and SW 56th Avenue...it's an "out and back" race.  I ran it last year...my goal today was simply to improve my finishing time.  And I did, considerably, despite the dew point being at 75 degrees, with 100 % humidity: a really muggy morning.  I was slower the first half than in the last half, a common trait of my racing.  My final chip time was 36:46...click HERE to view the results, provided by Second Wind Timing.  They gave out awards for the top finishers, age-graded: the formula they used qualified me for a plastic water bottle with the FTC logo on it.  The club president told me before the race that they'd be doing something different over in Felasco Park this time next year: a combined 5K and 10K trail run there...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 9

I admit it: reading...and even writing as well...hasn't been very fun for me lately, with the recently transpired events in my life.  Yet I still plod along, reading and writing less but still coming out with blog articles, albeit not daily (at least for this season).  I'm continuing with the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection, and have the next two stories in it, from the year 1997, to discuss...

YEYUKA by Greg Egan

This is a biting commentary on the disparity between the elite level in medical technology for some and the scarcity of anything effective in the Third World.  A physician wears a ring that diagnoses and treats just about anything medical that could go wrong in his body, but his technology isn't available to those living in Uganda, the site of a major outbreak of the fatal disease Yeyuka.  Yet some there are feverishly working hard to come up with bootleg versions based on spare parts they can muster. up  Out protagonist doctor discovers this on a volunteer mission to treat the epidemic and has a major ethical decision to make...

FROST PAINTING by Carolyn Ives Gilman

A professional critic searches the Montana wilderness to find her artist live-in lover, who left her to join a weird commune that supposedly is in deep communication to an alien race residing there.  Is art for its own sake worth basing one's life on, or is tailoring one's talents to others' preferences a sellout.? This, along with a pretty disparaging view of heterosexual men by the lesbian protagonist, dominate this brief tale...

More next week from the Dozois anthology...  

Enjoying Watching This Year's US Open Tennis Tourney

I enjoyed watching the US Open this weekend, with the round of 16 taking place on both the women and men's sides of this major tennis tournament, held in Queens, New York in Flushing Meadows.  I got to see some really good matches, although it seemed to me that for the men they were too drawn out with their best-of-five sets per match, as opposed to the women's more reasonable best-of-three.  My favorites so far have advanced...Iga Swiatek and Daniil Medvedev...and I like some of the upcoming matchups as they head into the quarterfinals.  Tennis is one of those special sports that are a combination of exceptional coordination, strength, mobility, endurance, and a chess-like sense of strategy...too bad I didn't get past the beginner stage.  Still, it's fun to watch although I found it a little sad to see people like Nick Kyrgios, whom I followed in years past, relegated to the broadcast analysis role on the sidelines after injuries to his knee.  Although I don't dig hyped-up nationalism in international sports...the recent Olympics is a case in point...it still disappointed me that the Russian and Belarus players are there without any noted national reference, as if we're going to make a difference in those governments' ongoing military actions by simply pretending they don't exist.  The world is full of nasty little despotic, belligerent regimes and their athletes are still welcome on the world stage with open arms, along with their countries' banners.  Sure, express your displeasure with the war over there but let's cut it with the double standards, okay?

Gator Football Saturday Performance Not to Many's Liking

Well, after the University of Florida football team convincingly bowed down to Miami in their Gainesville game yesterday afternoon by a whopping 41-17 score, it's not surprising that clamors are circulating for third-year head coach Billy Napier...who has yet to produce even a winning season, much less contend for any title...to be replaced, and soon.  I predicted this, as well as the same for a substantial number of colleges across the country after their teams lost their opening games.  But for the Gators, people have come to expect elite teams each year, and what they saw on Saturday was anything but that.  I think it's reasonable to have moderately successful seasons, going say 8-4 or 9-3 and getting a nice bowl bid at the end.  But that doesn't line up with the viciously competitive and professional turn the sport of collegiate football has reached.  For too many, if you don't win it all then you're a failure: lighten up, folks.  Still, I don't think Napier has a grasp on his own team, which played very sloppily...

Ran Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

This morning I went back to my more "normal" race location: Depot Park, just south of downtown Gainesville, where (almost) every Saturday morning at 7:30 they hold a five-kilometer (3.1 miles) race, free for anyone who wants to participate.  You can sign up online and they'll give you a barcode you can copy and take to the race so that your finishing time can be posted on their website.  Today was my 52nd Depot Parkrun finish...I wore my recently-acquired red tee-shirt displaying "50" for that recently-attained milestone.  The temperature at race time was 72 with a 97% humidity...not good but it could have been worse.  I decided beforehand to run the entire race without walking breaks...I wanted to test out my brand-new Brooks Glycerin running shoes.  Not feeling all that well physically (digestive issues), I managed to pace myself throughout the race and finish with a time of 27:25...click HERE to view the race results.  Looks like a lot of folks showed up for today's event, and many of them wisely walked it...maybe I'll do likewise next time around, we'll see.  Afterwards I tried going to the Starbucks near the University of Florida campus, which wasn't such a good idea.  It being opening day in the football season with the Gators at home in an afternoon game against Miami, the place was packed: I headed back north instead to the Dunkin' Donuts near my home...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen King

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics...trying to play a serious part in the world...to a culture that's really entertainment-based.               Stephen King

Stephen King is my all-time favorite writer...I've read more of his books by far than those by any other.  I'm not convinced, though, that this in itself means I would want to hang on his every opinion any more than I would anyone else...writing per se does not automatically impart supreme wisdom on the craftsman.  But that having been said, I am more or less in alignment with King's views on politics and society in general.  As far as the above quote of his is concerned, it's definitely an over-generalization of the state of our country, but since I grew up as his contemporary, immersed in it all, I totally get what he is driving at.  And I think the change from seriousness to entertainment began some time in the late 1960s when the drug/sex revolution, coinciding with the counterculture anti-war movement, went viral long before that term became common currency.  The seventies heralded the "me" generation that focused on self-examination and alternative lifestyles.  Then came the digital revolution and all kinds of entertainment became easy to access and portable...and here we are, all in our "safe spaces".  I remember the generation that came before me and it definitely had a different outlook on life.  I think that's one of the reasons that my all-time favorite novel of Stephen King is 11/22/63, a brilliant time-travel story that deeply examines those earlier attitudes and emphasis in our culture.  Try reading it some time if you haven't...not many books have literally made me cry, but this one did...

US Open Tennis Tournament Underway, How Much Can I Watch?

I was surprised to notice the other day that the US Open tennis tournament, held annually in New York and part of the sport's vaunted Grand Slam, had already begun with first round play.  Unfortunately, the regular channels on my lineup weren't carrying it...I'm assuming that some network wants more paying customers for one of their "premium" channels and was showing it there.  In any event, last night it was the second round and ESPN was finally showing it...sadly, by the time I got home from work they were done and back in football discussion mode.  Tennis, like horse racing, is a sport that I typically do not follow unless there is a special event going on.  With tennis it's the US Open, not the Australian, French or Wimbledon events.  I think that's in large part because three years ago I was home recovering from open heart surgery and had a lot of time on my hands to watch TV, and there it was, the US Open. I'm looking forward to seeing how the stars fare in their early play as well as take notice of this year's upstart underdogs...and there are always a few of those. For the longest time I refused to watch any tennis because the players in bygone years used to argue bitterly with line judges as to whether the ball fell in or out of bounds...in recent years computer technology has "virtually" eliminated that snag. Let's see how far good ol' Novak Djokovic gets this time around...

Weekly Short Stories: 1997 Science Fiction, Part 8

Once again it's time for a look at the short fiction I've been reading, although it's been creeping along recently at a terribly slow pace.  I'm going through a retrospective of the year 1997, using tales appearing in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection and edited by the late Gardner Dozois.  Here are my reactions to two more stories as they appear in the book...

THE PIPES OF PAN by Brian Stableford

What if, in our distant future, humanity has advanced to where people are essentially immortal, with the aging process eliminated?  How would it deal with the twin facets of overpopulation and having children?  The author suggests a possible solution, which involves the protagonist Wendy, a thirteen-year-old girl trying to hide from her parents her "coming of age".  There's a lot of Peter Pan story references in this piece about a utopian future turned dystopian...

CROSSING CHAO MENG FU by G. David Nordley

As a prequel to an earlier story by Nordley titled Into the Miranda Rift (click on the title for my review), a young poet during the (future) pioneering ventures across our Solar System teams up with a group of professional explorers, engineers and scientists to travel to Mercury and climb down into a deep crevice, with all the accompanying perils, in the old hardy tradition of exploration.  The story, full of technical information over my head...especially about mountain climbing...reminded me, with its positive spirit, of Robert Heinlein's old optimistic stories about space exploration.  I wish there were more stories like this around.  But then again, maybe they are and they're just not getting picked for these kinds of anthologies...

That's all with the short stories until next week...

Last Saturday's College Football Opener

This past Saturday I discovered that, for some schools, the 2024 college football season was underway...a week before my hometown of Gainesville witnesses the University of Florida's opening game against cross-state rival Miami.  Florida State faced Georgia Tech in an Atlantic Coast Conference contest, but neither side was "at home".  No, for some unfathomable reason, the game was staged across the Atlantic in a beautiful stadium in, of all places, Dublin, Ireland.  For the life of me I cannot understand why both the college and professional American football establishment here in the United States keep holding games in Europe, essentially depriving hometown fans here from being able to attend them.  To the big shots who keep pushing this agenda, I say: get real, nobody actually plays our version of football in Europe.  They either go for soccer or, in some countries, add rugby.  Those are the sports kids over there grow up playing, not our version of "football" that has players all padded up and helmeted.  Well, anyway I decided to follow the FSU-Tech contest and they were continually reminding me that the Seminoles were such a great team...so why was Georgia Tech playing them to a draw?  It was then that I was reminded of the fact that it's much more enjoyable to watch televised sports with the sound muted.  As it was, Tech beat the 'Noles on a last-second field goal...I wonder how many of those attending Dubliners even knew what the hell was going on...

Ran the US Road Running 10K at Gainesville's Westside Park This Morning

US Road Running is a nationwide network of running races that are typically staged within various parks.  They usually involve limited course lengths with numerous laps and "there-and-back" instructions to complete the course.  I noticed them a few years ago when they called themselves "Medal Madness" and had races at Ocala's Baseline Trailhead Park that ranged up to half marathon in length.  I had often considered driving down there...some forty miles away...just to see what they were like, but alas, never got around to it.  They started one of their monthly races in Gainesville just a month ago, and the location is the very convenient Albert Massey "Westside" Park just a short drive from my home.  The Gainesville version is held on the fourth Saturday each month, and races for distances of one mile, 5K, 10K and 15K all begin at the same time, 8 AM.  I signed up for a yearly subscription, knowing that I'd quickly recoup my investment with the 50% discounts for each race.  Missing July's race, I resolved to try it this month, and this morning I completed their 10K (6.2-mile) event.  The temperature at race time was 73 with 100% humidity and mostly clear skies...unpleasant to put it lightly.  Along with some 20+ other runners/walkers (most of whom did the 5K), we took off pretty much on time.  There were only two people I saw working the race, which was very low-tech.  On the back side of the course I got a little lost a couple of times and had to backtrack, but ultimately figured it all out.  The 5K has you going down this winding path through and around the park for some .78 miles and then you turn around and head back to the starting line.  Repeat it for a second time and you're done...my 10K had me doing it for four laps.  I finished with a time of 1:00:45, which I believe was my fastest 10K performance since 2017...turns out only two other people signed up for that distance.  I liked the low-key aspect to US Road Running, and they tend to go with special themes throughout the year: Pirate, Viking, Ninja and (today) Luau.  I got a Luau participation medal for my efforts, and left feeling that maybe when the weather gets a little better I'd like to try their 15K distance (6 laps on the course).  Click HERE to view today's results from their website...