This Blog to Leave Facebook Starting Tomorrow, 1/1/21

My blog URL is wmirwinsblog.blogspot.com.  I mention this because starting New Years Day 2021, tomorrow, I will no longer be posting links to it on Facebook or Twitter.  I am fed up with these social media platforms for a number of reasons and decided that I couldn't take them anymore...if you can, then the more power to you.  I don't know whether or not I'll eventually shut down my accounts, but for the time being I'm done with posting on them, and with no intention to return.  For those of you who like to read this blog, and for the smaller number who like to give me feedback, I'm still continuing with it as usual and can be accessed with the above URL.  I also welcome comments, which you can make by viewing the blog article in question in web format (not phone app format)...at the bottom is a window to write your reaction, which I'll receive and review before posting it.  And with this system, you can comment and request that I don't publish it, and I will comply!  When I began this blog project in 2007 I intended it to be a disciplined exercise in daily writing, and my goal is still the same.  For the first two or three years I received comments ranging the globe and felt I was a part of the burgeoning community of bloggers.  But then Facebook exploded onto the scene and the number of active blogs and bloggers drastically contracted...my solution was to post links to my articles on that social media site, with mixed results.  So now I'm off Facebook (and Twitter), but my blog's still out there in the great, wide blogosphere.   Wishing all of you a healthy and prosperous New Year!

My December 2020 Running and Walking Report

For December 2020 I ran a total of 92 miles and walked for 118.  I missed five running days for various reasons and my longest single run was for 7.5 miles and another one at 6.7...both coming near the beginning of the month. I don't see much change in my running and walking for the near future and don't see myself, in this COVID pandemic environment, engaging in any public races whether they're offered or not.  I'm basically in a holding pattern with running and walking right now...maybe in the future after things start to get back to normal I might hit the gym more and try longer distances again.  But not right now...

Weekly Short Stories: 1967 Science Fiction, Part 2

Here my reactions to the next four entries from the retroactive anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1968, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr and covering what they selected from the previous year's works.  One of the attractions to these kinds of year-to-year anthologies is the introduction section, both to the book and to each individual story.  By reading them you get a better sense of the authors' writing approaches, as well as some suggestions leading to other recommended stories of theirs.  Looking back on 1967 in my life, I spent a good part of my time that summer climbing trees...behind my old elementary school near my house they had some Australian pines tailor-made for that activity.  Now whenever I walk past a tree in my own neighborhood...or anywhere else for that matter...I feel compelled to appraise it for its possibilities and how high up I could go (at least if I were still ten years old like I was in '67)... 

BILLIARD BALL by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov went through a few years in the 1960s when he was focusing on nonfiction writing...here's one of his science fiction stories of that time.  A theoretical physicist and an entrepreneurial engineer capitalizing on the former's discoveries have had an ongoing association for years in which the competition between them has become heated and bitter.  It culminates when the businessman sets up a public demonstration of imparting zero mass to objects...something the theoretician claimed not feasible in spite of his own theory...in order to humiliate him.  The story transforms into a murder mystery...a genre of fiction that Asimov was also good at...

HAWKSBILL STATION by Robert Silverberg

The setting is the Cambrian Period of Earth's geologic past when no land-based life existed but invertebrate animal life proliferated in the oceans.  It's the setting where political prisoners from early in the 21st century (remember this was written in 1967) are sent back in time to live out the rest of their lives in forced exile...trilobites in all their varieties are the main dish. Barrett, an old-time exile resident of Hawksbill Station as it is called...and their de facto leader...has a new challenge as a new inmate is transmitting back in time to his era through the time portal they call "The Hammer".  Just who is this Lew Hahn and what is he up to?"  Although a time travel story, Hawksbill Station was more a look at what conditions were like during this fascinating period in our planet's distant prehistory. Silverberg later expanded it into a full-length novel...

THE NUMBER YOU HAVE REACHED by Thomas M. Disch

An astronaut is returning from an exploratory mission to Mars in which his two partners accidentally died...alone he lands on Earth to discover that nuclear war has wiped out all humanity, save himself.  Living on the top floor of a tall city building, he sets up his daily routine...which is rudely interrupted when he gets a phone call, an angry, accusing woman on the other end.  His reactions to her...and her attitude toward him...are the intriguing elements of this very brief tale..

THE MAN WHO LOVED THE FAIOLI by Roger Zelazny

In the cosmos there is an angelic type of female entity call the Faioli that comfort men who are on the cusp of death...and then mercifully end their suffering while consuming them.  A man with a special condition that allows him to enter and leave life is the perpetual caretaker of an interstellar graveyard.  A Faioli visits him but cannot detect his presence until he turns his own life back on...what an incredibly interesting and unique premise for a story.  This one's my favorite of the tales I reviewed today, although I was partial to Hawksbill Station as well...

Next week I continue discussing some of the best in short science fiction from the year 1967...

Just Finished Reading Empire by Clifford Simak

Clifford D. Simak (1904-88) was primarily a short story science fiction and western writer for about twenty years before he began to tackle the longer novel form...Empire was his third published novel, from 1951.  The story's premise is simple and understandable enough...that is, until the author gets bogged down with his presentation of the "science" behind the outlandish discoveries dictating its resolution.  Humanity is sometime off in the not-too-distant future and has settled several planets and moons in our solar system.  But the kind of explosive progress in space exploration and settlement that could happen is being stymied by one company's monopoly on energy throughout the system. Two pipe-smoking scientists, however, are working on a discovery that promises to revolutionize the extraction of energy and shift the rules of the game away from the monopolist and put them into the hands of the people.  Spoiler warning: I'm now going to discuss the novel's ending, so if you're planning to read it you might want to stop here. Empire's characters were okay but the way the two hero scientists manipulate time and distance to defeat their monopolistic foe reminded me of TV shows like Bewitched in which ordinary people are made to look like fools whenever Samantha decides to twitch her little nose.  The ending made little sense to me...the way was made open for folks to freely settle the planets and other star systems and establish their mines: for what?  For with their "two fields" theory, the scientists can instantaneously provide essentially free energy, instantaneously see and hear anywhere (in the universe), instantaneously go anywhere (in the universe), and travel in time.  And they're going to make these gifts available to everybody: sounds like a nightmare scenario to me instead of a happy ending.  I like Clifford Simak's writing, with The Big Front Yard and City ranking high among my favorite science fiction short stories and novels, respectively.  Empire, though, represented a step backward from his deserved greatness.  Still, it's a short read and you might find yourself laughing at it as I did...

My Personal Top Favorite Songs of 2020

The below list of my top favorite songs of 2020 bears a little explaining.  First of all...with the notable exception of Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien's brilliant singles release Shangri-La (under the name EOB), I heard no actual 2020 releases through the normal means of broadcast radio or music channels.  The rest of my list is split between tracks from Sufjan Stevens' wonderful 2020 album The Ascension and various songs I've become attached to as I have been exploring the late Prince's vast collection of albums.  With each title I have indicated the artist, followed by the song's album...and with Prince, the year of that album's release.  With Prince's Black Album, it was originally recorded and slated for release in 1987 but he had second thoughts and stopped it...it later was released in 1994 on a limited basis.  As for the #2 entry, it's actually two successive tracks on Stevens' album that naturally run together as one song...

1 THE ASCENSION...Sufjan Stevens (The Ascension)

2 DEATH STAR/GOODBYE TO ALL THAT...Sufjan Stevens (The Ascension)

3 ALPHABET STREET...Prince (Lovesexy, 1988)

4 CINDY C...Prince (The Black Album, 1967, 1994)

5 LANDSLIDE...Sufjan Stevens (The Ascension)

6 MOUNTAINS...Prince (Parade, 1986)

7 SHANGRI-LA...EOB (Earth)

8 POSITIVITY...Prince (Lovesexy, 1988)

9 LE GRIND...Prince (The Black Album, 1987, 1994)

10 AMERICA...Prince (Around the World in a Day, 1985)

11 URSA MAJOR...Sufjan Stevens (The Ascension)

12 HOUSEQUAKE...Prince (Sign o' the Times, 1987)

13 POP LIFE...Prince (Around the World in a Day, 1985)

14 LOOSE!...Prince (Come, 1994)

15 CINNAMON GIRL...Prince (Musicology, 2005)

Great Old TV Episodes: from The Twilight Zone

THE OLD MAN IN THE CAVE from The Twilight Zone (1963)

I'm considering today's entry on this blog as the first one in a new weekly series, where I pick a particular episode from one of the old television series I used to watch and discuss it.  Before long you might discern that the pool of TV series I draw from is relatively limited...sad to say, in the past thirty years or so I haven't been all that enchanted with what's been offered out there.  Still, having grown up a complete TV addict ever since I was a crib-shaking, paint-eating rebellious little baby, I have plenty of material to keep this going for quite a while.  For today I picked an old Twilight Zone episode, from 1963: The Old Man in the Cave...

It's ten years after a nuclear war holocaust and one man is leading his small group of people through survival.  He goes off and consults periodically with an "old man in the cave" who gives reports of radiation levels and which foods are edible and which are contaminated and deadly.  The people want desperately to return to the old "normal" times but grudgingly follow their leader...that is, until three armed renegade soldiers, led by a young, charismatic James Coburn, convince them to overthrow him and eat and drink all their canned and bottled items.  After all, it looks and tastes good, so it must be okay, right?  The old man in the cave represents the knowledge and authority of science while Coburn's character stands for the demagogues who feed off the fears and inconvenience experienced by the population to lead them astray.  The applications of this episode to today's situation with the coronavirus pandemic and those who deny it and refuse to wear face coverings, socially distance, or avoid large gatherings should be obvious...

Next week: another TV episode from the past...

Sitting at Starbucks Recalling Old Training Run

I enjoyed Christmas yesterday with my family...I hope you're enjoying the holiday season as well.  I'm going in to work today, even though it's my "off day"...looks like they're seriously short-staffed: no problem!  Right now I'm sitting outside my nearest Starbucks with the temperature here in Gainesville around 40 degrees, a little past noon on what may be the coldest day (and night) of the year.  I'm looking at a couple, heavily clad, jogging down the path on the other side of NW 43rd Street, reminding me of my memorable Christmas run ten years ago.  That afternoon Melissa had been called in to work, and I decided to go out to see how far I could run.  It was around 60 degrees and overcast to the point of being dark even though it was only mid-to-early afternoon when I began the run, which took me winding through one subdivision after another until I was far west of Devil's Milhopper on NW 53rd Avenue...then I made my way gradually back.  Through the entire run I encountered almost nobody...it was a virtual ghost town that yuletide day in 2010 with one stark exception: while passing through Felasco Park off NW 43rd Street...just a short walk from where I'm sitting right now...I passed a huge family of people walking the other way: they seemed Middle Eastern or Iranian in appearance as we smiled at each other.  By the time I was back in my own home area the skies were turning black with the night...just when I reached my "runner's block" at around 20 miles it began to rain and I returned home soaked.  Now that's the kind of training run I long for!  I'd still like to try it all again, but I think it would be at a much slower pace, with more walking breaks interspersed.  Well, I think I'd better fold up this laptop before my hands freeze off and get on to work...

Merry Christmas

I'd like to take this moment to wish all of you a happy holiday today...Merry Christmas!  May peace, joy, health, prosperity, wisdom...and love...all be abundant in your lives!

Free Pluto TV Has James Bond Channel

Around my family recently the question came up about what I wanted for Christmas...struggling to come up with something, I responded that I'd like a James Bond DVD since I enjoy watching that spy movie series.  My daughter Rebecca then informed me that there is a free channel on Roku called Pluto which plays James Bond movies 24/7, with other channels devoted to genre-based films and specific television series like Star Trek and MacGyver.  I checked it out and can now confidently state that at any given moment in time (when I'm free to watch TV) I can find myself watching one of the 007 movies, stretching back from the first, Dr. No, from 1962 all the way through Die Another Day, from 2002...it does seem that the most recent ones featuring Daniel Craig as Bond are excluded, though, and you don't pick the movie but rather watch what's been scheduled: that works for me.  The channels on Pluto do include commercial breaks, which I am totally okay with...gives me opportunities to run to the kitchen or bathroom! Another channel, Tubi, provides all 17 episodes of the British science fiction series The Prisoner starring the late Patrick McGoohan...and it's also possible to access McGoohan's previous spy series Danger Man, marketed in the U.S. as Secret Agent Man with the famous Johnny Rivers theme song.  Not that I have the time to watch all this stuff, but it's nice to have this option with the Bond flicks.  Now all they need to do is come up with a Clint Eastwood channel...

Weekly Short Stories: 1967 Science Fiction, Part 1

Today I begin to examine some of the selected science fiction short stories from 1967 as they appeared in the following year's anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1968, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr.  In 1967, still living with my family in west Hollywood, I was finishing the fifth grade and transitioning into the sixth at Nova Elementary in Davie.  Summertime in between was full of tree climbing and outdoor games, highlighted by Slam, a tamer variant of basketball more suited to klutzes like myself.  I was a Monkees fan back then...at least early on in the year, and pretty much was ignoring the Beatles except for their releases of All You Need is Love (which they recorded live on a June special TV show called Our World) and Hello/Goodbye.  At the start of the school year in late summer I became ill with a high fever for several days: then, upon returning, the teachers went on strike statewide, my home room teacher never coming back.  In the news, the Vietnam War was raging and escalating with no end in sight...although I began to hear the cliché "light at the end of the tunnel" this year.  But we're discussing sci-fi of the time, aren't we, so without further ado here are my reactions to the first four stories in the book...

SEE ME NOT by Richard Wilson

Avery, a suburbanite living in the present time (c. 1967) with his wife, and two kids, wakes up one morning to discover that he has become completely invisible.  The story develops as he stumbles around with his affliction, shocking his wife and daughter while delighting his bold little son...then his secret leaks out and you get the different, predictable varieties of reaction among the surrounding people.  I thought it was a cute, funny story...it actually has an explanation and a reasonable resolution, which helps to firmly place it square in the science fiction genre instead of fantasy... 

DRIFTGLASS by Samuel R. Delany

In an overpopulated Earth of the future, the option has been developed whereby some people can be genetically transformed to have gills, webbed feet and hands, and scales that allow them to freely exist both in the sea and on land.  One such person is a man disabled from burns from a terrible underseas volcanic eruption while trying to lay down cable on the ocean floor.  The project that injured him is now going to be attempted again, and he naturally has mixed feelings on it all.  This is more or less a piece whose value lies in creating a plausible future scenario: genetic adaptation to underwater living, and I found it very intriguing...

AMBASSADOR TO VERDAMMT by Colin Kapp

On a newly explored planet humans encounter what is most definitely an intelligent life form there, but it is so strange that it cannot be contacted directly...they call for a special ambassador from Earth to serve as translator.  A skeptical technician ignores others' warnings and sets out to investigate these elusive beings...what a mind trip!  This story...especially its ending...reminded me of one of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories: the 1942 classic Mimsy Were the Borogroves by Lewis Padgett...

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS by R.A. Lafferty

A "man of the future" makes a wager with other skeptical residents of a rural small town that he has the power to make a man disappear...and goes about causing it with all looking on. But it looks like he bit off a little more than he could chew when the wager's results become evident.  This story is an example of someone with great talent, yet behaving in a completely foolish manner with it...no telling what he could have done with it if his own mindset hadn't been so petty.  The ending shows, in mirror effect, another way to make a man disappear...

Next week I continue with my look at 1967 in short science fiction...

Just Finished Reading Glory Road by Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein was considered one of the greatest American science fiction writers of the past century, penning such works as Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Starship Troopers.  He's also written many renowned short stories in the genre, which I've reviewed on this blog.  I just finished reading his 1964 novel Glory Road, which I didn't like as much as the others although it was acclaimed at the time.  In it a young man, Gordon, has just left the army after a stint in Vietnam in which he was classified as a "military advisor" but engaged in actual combat...he is something of an adventurer and is uncertain about what he wants to do with his future.  He meets a beautiful young woman, Star, and eventually gets drawn with her on a quest as he progressively discovers her importance, not only on Earth but throughout the multiverse.  Although on the surface Glory Road presented itself as a fantasy adventure with a lot of action sections, I got the distinct impression that Heinlein used the story primarily as a framework in which to insert his personal views of military valor and toughness and a libertarian perspective on society...especially concerning relationships and sex.  His protagonist Gordon, later named "Oscar", tells the narrative from the first-person viewpoint, complete with his own assumptions about people along with a liberal use of colloquial, idiomatic and slang language...that part I kind of liked and thought funny.  As I said, I didn't think that Glory Road was his best novel, but I'm glad I read it and think that it captures a certain mindset that prevailed among many living back then and even now...

My #1 All-Time Favorite Song: These Are My Twisted Words by Radiohead

THESE ARE MY TWISTED WORDS, by the British rock band Radiohead, is my all-time top favorite song.  It never was released as a single and appears on none of their albums.  The only reason I ever discovered its existence was that in late 2010 I happened to be on the band's website and they were offering it as a free download.  Download it I did, then put it on my MP3 player...and during the dark and dreary days of that winter...the last truly cold one we've experienced here in Gainesville... I listened to it often on my ultra-long distance runs through one neighborhood after another.  Looking back I cannot listen to it without associating it with that wonderful and interesting time...but association alone doesn't make a song Number One, does it? These Are My Twisted Words begins with a two-and-a-half minute dreamy instrumental sequence of layered guitars...along with an electronic cello-sounding background: definitely a "going down the rabbit role" kind of listening experience.  Eventually front man Thom Yorke breaks in with his plaintive singing style...he tackles his role here with much passion, evoking a sense of forlornness that I've seldom heard in a song.  It's a very moody piece, appealing to an often very moody person...namely, myself.  Although Radiohead didn't promote it in their recordings, they have performed it in concert...why it's such a relatively unknown work of theirs is beyond me.  In a funny way it shows that great rock doesn't have to be complicated...this song certainly has a simple basic structure, beyond the instrumental texturing.  It's been going on ten years now since I first heard it and my estimation of it has only increased...sometimes those overlooked, lost tracks are the best...

And that's it with my Top 500 list of personal all-time favorite songs.  Guess I'll be starting on a different "top favorites" list about something else before long...

The Great Conjunction of Planets Jupiter and Saturn Tomorrow Evening

Tomorrow evening...assuming there are clear skies above us...we should be treated to a rare astronomical event as the planets Jupiter and Saturn will appear the closest to each other they ever have from Earth's perspective in nearly 400 years.  This doesn't have anything to do with the two planets' distances from each other, though, and we're fortunate that both have moved eastward on their respective zodiacal paths so that when Monday's conjunction occurs they should be visible just above the southwestern horizon when the sun sets and the sky darkens.  Last night here in Gainesville the skies were overcast and the same is predicted tonight...tomorrow, though, they will be clear: alas, I'll be at work then.  Still, for the past few months I've enjoyed looking at the two largest planets in our solar system close together in the sky, in the constellation Sagittarius (just west of Capricornus, where they are now to be found).  Once you've seen them "hug" each other tomorrow evening in their celestial dance, then swing over to the high eastern sky and behold Mars, still much brighter than it is usually seen.  And, of course, the moon is right there in the middle of it all... 

Prince's Black Album...and Self-Censorship

Several weeks ago I wrote that I was going to explore the collective studio album works of the late, great popular musician Prince...I've heard about half of his 39 albums to date and think well of all of them, although naturally I like a few better than others.  One of these that I instantly took a liking to the first time I heard it...this time from YouTube...is the so-called "Black Album" which I originally thought was recorded and released in 1994.  Like the Beatles' so-called White Album from 1968, the Black Album is actually untitled, released in a black jacket.  Prince recorded it around 1987 and reportedly, with his backup band, took more time and effort to put it together than any other work of his...yet when it was released he suddenly did an about-face on it, proclaiming it "evil" and urging his fans not to buy it.  The release was stopped after just a few sales and the album would eventually be rereleased on CD in a limited edition eight years later.  Apparently, Prince disliked what he perceived as the album's negative bent, although its most negative track by far, Bob George...which had a very similar theme to Jimi Hendrix's rendition of Hey Joe...was something the artist continued to perform in concerts afterwards.  I thought it was an energetic (and often very funny) album with a great mix of musical styles...not my favorite Prince album but right up there with some of his best.  The point here that I'm trying to make is that anyone who creates music, art...or something on social media like Facebook or Twitter...can have times when they produce something they later think was inappropriate and would like to take back even though it's too late to do so.  It's a problem that all serious artists and writers have to face: you want to be true to your feelings and even passions...including the negative ones...but also are concerned about how they will be received by your audience and if there might not be pushback.  The way I handle this sort of thing on my blog...and I'm admittedly no wise guru on the subject...is to stay away from profanity and intentionally avoid singling out individual people for criticism...unless they are public figures like entertainment and media celebrities or politicians...and instead make more general comments about trends I see within society.  But beyond my own standards, employing self-censorship will only produce insipid, insincere, namby-pamby results that aren't worth anyone's attention.  It's a shame that Prince's Black Album was suppressed, but I suppose it was his call to make, not mine...

Quote of the Week...from Ray Bradbury

 You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.  Just get people to stop reading them.

                                                                     ---Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, who wrote prolifically and is responsible for many renowned works like Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, The Pedestrian...and perhaps his most famous, Fahrenheit 451, was a great lover of reading.  That last book I mentioned is what probably prompted the above quote as its setting was a future dystopia in which books were banned and burned.  I think that reading as a regular discipline or even as an enjoyable hobby has never been something that the majority of any given population...in any era...has taken to.  I also think that in today's world of Amazon, Kindle, and audiobooks, books have never been so available. Yet as I've mentioned before on this blog, those publications that haven't been digitalized and are out of print can be very hard to come by...quite unlike the music industry that has so successfully gone back to the vinyl record era and digitalized most of what has been recorded.  Regarding Bradbury's above quote, I would like to tweak the last sentence a little to read "Just get people to stop reading them critically, with discernment".  This goes especially for nonfiction works that advocate specific positions and ideologies on politics, society, history, lifestyle, dieting and the like. To enhance a culture rather than contribute to its destruction folks shouldn't just read stuff that panders to their preconceived notions and demonizes opposing perspectives and those holding them.  You need to take what's written and process it as to its truth value, as well as try to understand why the author is saying whatever he or she is saying.  Trump worshippers aren't going to expand their horizons by reading the latest Sean Hannity book, and likewise his detractors won't achieve a more broadened perspective taking up the book written by the president's niece, Mary Trump.  I'm not suggesting, either, that the two sides flip and read the "other side's" books...better instead to pick material that is light on the venom and innuendo and heavy on civil discourse.  I saw a Twilight Zone episode once where two aliens come down to Earth to abduct the greatest human in history...turns out the man in question was the world's biggest liar, but the aliens automatically believed everything he said, not possessing the capacity to discern truth from falsehood.  We can do better than that, and we can start by reading stuff that challenges us, not just whatever props up our prejudices... 

A Belated Happy 250th Birthday, Beethoven

On either the 15th or 16th of December, 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the greatest classical composers of all time, was born.  I listened the other evening on my phone to New York's classical music station WQXR as they were appropriately devoting their programming to his life and legacy during this celebration of his 250th birthday.  Beethoven's gradual loss of hearing, culminating in deafness, has always floored me: how could anyone like this compose something as complex and beautiful as his Ninth Symphony, along with the other late works of his career?  I've always loved that symphony, especially its second movement...which used to be played during the closing credits of the Huntley/Brinkley national news report on NBC during the 1960s when I was growing up.  I love listening to classical music, but at the same time usually feel a bit intimidated: I have no special musical training other then a brief period a few years ago when I took beginning piano.  There's a highly technical side of it all that completely escapes me...what I'm left with as a lay listener is the way the instruments interact during the particular piece's flow to impart feeling. Sometimes it's easy to "get" a classical work, as was the case with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Bach's 140th Cantata, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Debussy's Nocturnes...other times it's harder, as has been the case for me with some of the symphonies of Mozart, Haydn, and Mahler...and even some of Beethoven's.  In any event, I usually have my car radio on Gainesville's classical music station on 102.7...if you're in town why not give it a listen?   

Weekly Short Stories: 1966 Science Fiction, Part 3

Today I conclude my look back at the year of 1966 in science fiction short stories with the final entries in the retrospective anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1967...edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr.  While these stories were first appearing in various magazines I was nine years old...going on ten...living in Hollywood, Florida with my parents and sister and attending Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School in Davie, going from the fourth grade there into the fifth. In February we were blessed with a spunky little cockapoo puppy, which we named Michelle after the ongoing hit Beatles song...she would be with the family for fifteen wonderful years.  Lyndon Johnson was riding high in the presidency and seemed hellbent on getting the country inextricably drawn into an endless war of attrition in Vietnam with the military draft going on strong, sending non-volunteers into enemy-held territory to draw out their fire: what a cynical strategy. I remember earlier that year a "patriotism" class at Nova in which the idea of how noble it is to die for one's country was promoted...the librarian's son was in 'Nam at the time and she put in her two cents worth for the war. All I could think, at age nine, was is this what's in store for me in my life?  Well, here are my reactions to those four stories from the book...

 

THE WINGS OF A BAT by Paul Ash

Industrial mining meets time travel technology as such a firm finds itself doing just that, back in the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs roamed and pterodons...winged dinosaurs...flew.  The physician on duty finds himself the nanny of a baby version of such a creature...wing spans up to twenty feet when grown.  It's a bit comical how the doc, who's telling the story, reluctantly puts up with the antics of this creature.  Fiona, she's called, grows up and eventually gets her flying instincts and skills going and flies away, never expected to return to the camp. Yet you know that somehow in the end it's all going to come back as a terrible storm is brewing and our physician hero is caught in the middle of it all.  Although it was (ugh) a time travel story, this one was set completely in the past so they didn't pull out all those annoying paradoxes that they do in other such tales.  Also, I thought it was kind of sweet... 

THE MAN FROM WHEN by Dannie Plachta

Speaking of annoying time travel stories, the only redeeming thing about this one is that it was very, very, short, taking up just a couple of pages.  Out in the country somewhere a man contemplates the scenery while about to mix his favorite drink.  Suddenly, just a few hundred yards away there's a big explosion...and a stranger emerges from the surrounding mist and approaches him: naturally he's from the future, performing a time travel experiment.  What he tells the dude standing there reveals what we sometimes think about doomsday predictions of our future: if they're far off ahead of us then we tend to shrug them off...otherwise...

AMEN AND OUT by Brian Aldiss

In a future Earth when a select few, through special injections, have become immortal and computers and machinery pretty much run people's lives with each person carrying around with them a computer-run shrine to pray to, one indigent outcast has a bold plan to rock the boat as he tries to convince one of the immortals to be the first one ever to leave their place of confinement for centuries.  This story delves into topics like how much people increasingly depend on their machines...and the reference to the shrines made me grin, thinking how much folks nowadays revere the smartphones they absolutely must have in their possession 24/7 and how much meaning they derive from them.  Also, it's a bit philosophical about the implications of immortality and how such people might see things differently from us mortals. The story's final line is a classic...

FOR A BREATH I TARRY by Roger Zelazny

Many thousands of years into the future there is no more human life on Earth, but the machines they built continue "living" on and have created new machines that serve them.  Originally there were two main machines, Solcom as a satellite orbiting Earth, and Divcom, deep underneath the surface, who are now vying for machine supremacy and trying to convert the planet's smaller machines to their respective sides.  On the North Pole dwells the huge, cubical machine Frost who, besides his assigned duties on behalf of Solcom, has an interesting hobby: the study of Man through his relics, books, and movies.  It is this quest to understand what humanity was all about and how they differed from machines that drives the flow of this interesting story.  Frost's fascination with humanity leads him to a wager of sorts with the other machines, leading to a most intriguing ending...

Next week I begin my look at science fiction short stories from 1967...

Just Finished Reading Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins

After thoroughly enjoying reading the Hunger Games young adult science fiction trilogy by Suzanne Collins, I had decided a few weeks ago to go back further in her writing history and tackle her five-part children's fantasy series, titled The Underland Chronicles.  I just finished book two, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, from 2004.  Gregor is the name of the series' protagonist, a boy living in poverty in New York City with his family: his mother, father, and two sisters, one of whom, the baby "Boots", has accompanied Gregor in his odysseys far down below ground among the huge talking rats, bats, spiders, cockroaches...and other creatures living there with descendants of the humans who first voyaged there some three centuries earlier.  In this story Gregor is taking Boots out to the park...all he has to do is divert his eyes for a couple of seconds and she's gone...taken underground by giant, protective cockroaches.  You see, they have a scroll, the Prophecy of Bane, which states that the babe's life is in danger from the villainous rats.  Gregor has no choice but to return to the scene of his previous adventure to rescue his beloved little sister...and then is informed that the "Bane" in the prophecy is a huge, evil white rat that he must seek out and destroy on his own.  And the story goes on with some good twists and turns...I liked it and felt that there was a message here regarding using compassion and discernment even in the midst of perilous combat situations.  The ending leaves no doubt that there will be a sequel...which Collins dutifully wrote and published the next year.  I'll soon be reading this next installment, titled Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods...a story which, like the first two, is predicated on a different prophecy of the Underland.  No, I'm not a kid but this series is working for me..,

My #2 All-Time Favorite Song: Switchblade Smiles by Kasabian

SWITCHBLADE SMILES, by the English alternative rock band Kasabian, is my #2 favorite song of all-time.  It's from their 2011 fourth album, titled Velociraptor!, which is also one of the album's tracks...velociraptors, by the way, were a type of speedy, predatory dinosaur during the Cretaceous Period.  Although Kasabian made an interesting, dynamic performance video of Switchblade Smiles, it wasn't released as a single and remains as a deep track on the album, which didn't even chart in the United States (although Velociraptor! reached Number One in the United Kingdom).  Because I was already a Kasabian fan from some of their earlier songs like Reason is Treason, Test Transmission and  L.S.F.,  I soon picked up the album and put it on my MP3 player with all the others...in 2013 I was into listening to a shuffle of Kasabian songs while on my long-distance training runs, and that was how I noticed and grew to appreciate what a great, energetic song Switchblade Smiles was...I made it my "song of the year" seven years ago.  I'm partial to songs like this that fuse together different genres of music and make it all work.  The beginning sounds like it's going to be a techno piece with soft, soothing singing...until the heavy drums cut in and then a killer Led Zeppelin-like guitar rift sends the listener sharply in a different direction.  Add to that elements of punk/rap and eerie interludes sounding Middle Eastern and you have a very singular work.  The lyrics are almost impossible to decipher...even when you read them out, so I have interpreted the general message as one of defiance at all the BS going on around me, to put things as diplomatically as I can..it hits me like Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down in this respect .  It's a passionate song by a band that has sadly tapered off a bit with their last two albums...let's see if they can't pick up the pieces after their front man recently left them and bring back the earlier glory...

Just Finished Reading Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick

Solar Lottery, a 1955 science fiction novel of Philip K. Dick and the thirteenth book of his I've read so far, creates a future world that I don't want to live in.  Mathematicians in government have devised a strategy of a worldwide society based on a lottery system...how people do depends on their "luck", which they can (and usually do) trade in for the benefit of contracting their labor (and ultimately, freedom) to different powerful employers.  The protagonist, a young engineer named Ted Benteley, one day finds himself out of a job when his employer he is contracted to has to lay off much of their workforce due to a fire.  Benteley wants to climb the ladder of success and seeks the current Quizmaster, i.e. the lottery-winning most-powerful person in the Solar System, to contract himself out to.  Unfortunately, after taking his loyalty oath he finds out that this individual, Verrick, is no longer Quizmaster and he is once again stuck working for a "lesser" employer.  Here the story takes a sharp turn, as the assassination of a Quizmaster is completely legal and Verrick schemes to knock off the new one, a guy named Cartwright.  Since Benteley is in contract to Verrick, he must go along with his new boss's plans...and there the story works it way through to a pretty interesting conclusion.  Throw into the mix that Cartwright is involved with a cult-like movement led by a man named Preston to colonize a yet-undiscovered outer planet, and you pretty much have a sketchy outline of this tale.  Oh, and telepathy plays a role here...causing me to groan a little on the inside since I'm sick and tired of sci-fi stories featuring the phenomenon as an integral element...I don't hanker much to time travel fiction, either (although Stephen King's excellent 11/22/63 is a striking exception).  But I need to consider that the author wrote it in 1955 and it was, according to Wikipedia, his first ever published novel.  As Philip K. Dick novels go, I thought it was one of his better works. From time to time I'll seek out another story of his...he wrote a lot of novels and not all of them were science fiction, although that is the genre for which he is best known...