Pocket Workshop: Essays on Living as a Writer

Today, I opened a package containing a beautiful hardcover proof copy of the book I've been working on since March of 2020. It will launch one month from today. I won't make comparisons to babies, but this has been a huge thing in my life, and I couldn't be prouder or happier. 

I'm immensely grateful to all of the authors who contributed essays, and to Tod for inviting me to join him in editing the anthology.

If you want to learn more about the book (or pre-order a copy), follow this link. The rest of this post is about my experience with it.

I wrote the following foreword for the book three months ago... and then I thought better of it and decided to write a foreword for the book that was more about the book (and less about me)—something to help introduce readers to what they held in their hands. This first stab at a foreword felt more like a blog post... so... that's what it'll be. 

This book’s table of contents reads like an index to the last nine years of my life. 
In 2012, I attended Clarion West, where I was told—among many things—that I might not be a writer, that I might become an editor instead.
Months earlier, at a small SF con called Potlatch, I met Tod McCoy. Later I would remember him for two things: 1) gleefully bidding up—and winning—a signed first edition at the benefit auction (Was it a Zelazny or a Delany?) and 2) going out of his way to welcome newcomers to the Seattle SF scene. Oh, and a third: he mentioned that he published books. (Also that weekend, I met Pocket Workshop’s cover artist, Cory Skerry, who likened novel writing to juggling, and who would soon be among my Clarion West cohort.)
Rewind another six months: Fall of 2011 saw me taking a one-day workshop from Nancy Kress and online classes from Cat Rambo. Nancy taught me about scenes and how (I’d been failing) to write them. Cat taught me everything. (And she told me that choosing not to write was perfectly valid… but that in her home, writers just f**king write.)
Jump forward again to Clarion West 2012—the summer workshop. It was finally happening. The long hours and late nights, the shared genius (real or imagined), the terror and delight at every written—every critiqued—story, the voices of instructors (which would continue speaking in my head thereafter (those of Stephen Graham Jones and Connie Willis included), and the emergence of a new family—a cohort of writers who know me better than anyone ought (two of their voices speak from these pages). 
After the workshop, I returned for more, first as an assistant, then as workshop administrator, joys of which position included working with Neile Graham, witnessing students’ growth, and forging friendships with instructors (many of Pocket Workshop’s authors). I now serve on Clarion West’s board, and while I’ve loved the organization since first contact, its ongoing dedication to nurturing and promoting neglected, marginalized, and underheard voices, and to engaging with the social and literary interests of our community, make me ever happier to be counted among its number. Especially now, in the hate-drenched apocalyptic chaos of 2020 (and I’m writing this three months shy of year’s end).
Today I finished reading the 1997 Elizabeth Hand novel Glimmering. Global pandemic, environmental horror, social collapse: it felt too familiar—another morning’s trawl through Guardian headlines. I tend toward depression. It’s an effort to keep my brain from spiraling, and this year has put anti-spiraling tools to the test. Editing Pocket Workshop—reading these essays and corresponding with their authors, guzzling at the firehose of their wisdom—has helped. For me, it is one of a handful of bright foci scattered across darkness—another shining point in a vibrant constellation of hope, of future. 
It’s a book for writers, yes. But also, it’s a book for people who live… now. And tomorrow.

Here's the Table of Contents:

• 
  
• “Introduction” by Neile Graham
• “Being and Becoming a Writer” by Karen Lord
• “We All Have to Start Somewhere: Finding Your Process and Making it Work for You” by Tina Connolly and Caroline M. Yoachim
• “Setting the Scene” by Nancy Kress
• “Thickening the Plot” by Samuel R. Delany
• “Some Thoughts on Exposition” by Tobias Buckell
• “The Devil Is in the Details” by Connie Willis
• “Coincidentally . . .” by Stephen Graham Jones
• “Channeling Voices” by Andy Duncan
• “Status” by Helen Marshall
• “Neowise” by Paul Park
• “The Old Marvellous” by John Crowley
• “The Three Laws of Great Endings and My Two Shameless Hacks” by James Patrick Kelly
• “Diversity Plus: Diverse Story Forms, Not Just Diverse Faces” by Henry Lien
• “Researching Imaginary Worlds” by Ken MacLeod
• “Something to Cry About” by Nisi Shawl
• “The Narrative Gift as a Moral Conundrum” by Ursula K. Le Guin
• “Tapping the Source” by Elizabeth Hand
• “Feed Your Engine” by Jack Skillingstead
• “Congratulations on Learning to Juggle — Now Get on the Unicycle” by Daryl Gregory
• “Writing in the Age of Distraction” by Cory Doctorow
• “Going Through an Impasse: Evading Writer’s Block” by Eileen Gunn
• “On Mentors and Mentees” by Cat Rambo
• “Pitfalls of Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy: General Useful Information & Other Opinionated Comments” by Vonda N. McIntyre
• “Positive Obsession” by Octavia Butler
• “* Take As Needed” by Hiromi Goto
• “Matters of Life and Death” by Susan Palwick
• “Proverbs of Hell for Writers” by Ian McDonald

Editing Resume

p l a y s   w e l l   w i t h   o t h e r s ’   w o r d s

Micaiah H. Evans, MD, MPH

Freelance Editor and Writer 

m.huw.evans@gmail.com

206.387.0932 

— medically trained editor of science articles, academic texts, novels, and short fiction —

— biomedical plausibility and story craft consultant to fiction authors —

— writer of stories, letters, and newsletters —

— wordsmith —

skills

• Developmental, structural, and substantive editing
• Copyediting and proofreading
• Personalized consultation on biomedical elements of fiction and nonfiction
• Fact-checking and formatting of medical science manuscripts

experience

• Pocket Workshop, a book of essays on writing, co-edited with Tod McCoy, 2021
• project management, developmental editing, copyediting, proofreading
• Short story by Georgina Kamsika, 2020
• developmental and line editing of "Something Beautiful That Goes Out"
• Urban ecology projects for UW professor Marina Alberti 2014 – 2019
• copyediting of 300-page textbook, Cities That Think Like Planets
• copyediting of articles for academic and lay publications
• rapid turnaround rewrites of web copy, press releases, and correspondences
• Manuscript preparation for Forte Science Communications 2016 – 2018
• copyediting manuscripts by Japanese scientists for submission to English-language journals
• helping authors rewrite articles in response to reviewers’ and journal editors' requests
• Fantasy novel by Michael & Linda Pearce 2017
• copyediting of a self-published 400-page book, Lord of the North 

employment

• Workshop administrator, Clarion West Writers Workshop 2014 – 2017
• coordinating and running annual six-week residential workshop
• recruiting instructors for, coordinating, and monitoring one-day workshops
• interacting and collaborating with dozens of professional writers and editors
• Graduate student and postdoctoral trainee, UW School of Public Health 2010 – 2011
• collecting, analyzing, and reporting environmental and occupational health data
• writing manuscripts and presentations based on original research
• line editing and proofreading colleagues’ manuscripts
• Chief resident, clinical and anatomic pathology, University of New Mexico 2009 – 2010
• writing and editing pathology reports, clinical laboratory protocols, research findings, didactic presentations, and administrative documents 

education

• University of Washington — Certificate in Editing — 2020
• University of Kansas, Gunn Center Novel Workshop — 2017
• Clarion West Writers Workshop — 2012
• University of Washington, School of Public Health — 2010–2011
• University of New Mexico, School of Medicine — Pathology Residency — 2006–2010
• University of Washington, School of Medicine — Doctor of Medicine — 2002–2006
• Tulane University, School of Public Health — Master of Public Health — 2001–2002
• Seattle Pacific University, Biochemistry — Bachelor of Science — 1998–2000

2015 Review or The Books I've Consumed Over the Past Twelve Months

Okay... so... here's an incomplete list of the books, audiobooks, and comics I consumed in 2015. I only include works here that 1) I'm pretty sure I read during the 2015 calendar year and 2) I enjoyed enough to recommend them. Oh... and they are not in any particular order within category, so the best ones aren't necessarily at the top.


Audiobooks

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
A classic. Good science fiction book.

The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Pure genius, start to finish... and great narration for the audiobook. I absolutely recommend this book; Easily in my top 50 ever.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker
So, so good. If you haven't read it, do so. The audiobook is brilliant.

Nexus - Ramez Naam
Crux - Ramez Naam
Apex - Ramez Naam
Excellent near-future science-fictional techno-thriller trilogy. Great fun—and they make you think. A lot. Full of stimulating speculations and plausible extrapolations about technology, neurobiology, politics, warfare, religion, and human relationships.

Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson
Oh, holy hell, yes! Of course, anything from KSR is going to be amazing, but this... this... well, go read it (or listen to it).

2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson
Wait, hang on... if Aurora got a ten, 2312 gets at least an eleven? Because, yeah, this one is even better. Well... I don't know if it's actually better, but it affected me more. An absolute masterpiece.

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
A classic—and for good reason. Excellent book. If you haven't read it, do.

Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
Thoroughly enjoyable. Especially if you're into opera.

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
I wanted this book to go on forever. So beautiful!

The Water Knife - Paolo Bacigalupi
Terrific book. More environmental thriller maybe than SF (and thrillers aren't typically my thing), but wow, did it keep me rapt! I loved The Windup Girl, Pump Six, and Shipbreaker, but I feel like the characters in The Water Knife are even more real and alive. As their paths converge, collide, and become inextricably tangled, all of their motivations, actions, and responses are entirely real... and their outcomes are earned. A gritty delight.

SevenEves - Neal Stephenson
YES! The first half destroyed me; the second half reconstituted the debris. Amazing book. I listened to it shortly after it came out (May) and hardly a day has passed since that I haven't thought about it.

The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro
So strange. Beautiful. Ultimately, I loved this book, but it was... different. Quite possibly perfect.

We Are All Completely Fine - Daryl Gregory
Brilliant novella. Engaging, compelling, thought-provoking, emotionally moving, and funny. I feel like the characters are still living in my head—they pop up every now and again to remind me that the world is a very weird place.

Harrison Squared - Daryl Gregory
Super fun Lovecraftian YA novel featuring [spoilers] one of the characters from We Are All Completely Fine. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope Daryl gives us more novels from this world!

Passage - Connie Willis
Damnit, Connie! Why? WHY? WHY? I'm pretty sure I'll never completely recover from this one. Wow. SO good. Possibly my favorite Connie Willis novel (which is saying a lot, given that my older daughter's middle name came from Connie's Doomsday Book). Intense and heart-crushing exploration of death, hope, grief, love, disasters, stupidity, brilliance, and resilience (romance and comedy make their appearances too, of course—it is a Connie Willis novel, after all).

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
Mitchell at his finest. I can't recommend this book enough. So good. And the narration in the audiobook (by two different narrators) is superb.

The Peripheral - William Gibson
If it weren't for Aurora, 2312, and SevenEves, and Passage, I'd say that The Peripheral was the best science fiction audiobook on the list... but given those other four, I'll just say it's one of the five best science fiction audiobooks on the list. Really, though, this is a positively brilliant and expertly executed book. I LOVED it.

Cujo - Stephen King
Another classic. Very effective.

In progress: The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
I'm about three-quarters of the way through this massive tome... and unless it falls apart somehow (which I can't imagine it doing), it's on track to be among my favorite books ever.



Books (print or electronic)

Alif the Unseen - G. Willow Wilson
Really wonderful YA novel. Read it!

The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman
This is a strange and wonderful book. Deeply moving and thoroughly original. Also a great one for opera lovers.

A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
So good. This book inhabits that marvelous realm where literary and speculative fiction intersect. If you haven't read it, you're in for a treat.

All Those Vanished Engines - Paul Park
Unlike anything else I've read. I loved it... but I don't know how/where to classify it. Scenes and images from this book play in my mind over and over again and every time I think about it, I discover new ways to see it. This is one that I definitely need to read again. And you should read it too so that we can talk about it.

The Dragons of Heaven - Alyc Helms
So, so good! SO MUCH FUN! Wow. A wild and brilliant mix of noir, adventure, fantasy, and romance. And DRAGONS! Oh, but these are not the dragons you've known before. These dragons... wow... they might just stir up feelings that... well... read the book for yourself. But don't blame me if you love it in ways you might never have expected.
Caution: If you start this book, you won't be able to put it down... and when you've finished it, you'll want more. Good news, though, the sequel, The Conclave of Shadow, is coming this April!

Seriously Wicked - Tina Connolly
What a riot! Seriously, this book rocks. Funny, smart YA fantasy. Couldn't put it down. Can hardly wait for the next in the series, Seriously Shifted, to come out next fall.

MARTians - Blythe Woolston
Blythe, Blythe, Blythe... what a book. This YA novel shows us an all too plausible dystopian future—though not your typical dystopian future. This is a future of compulsory consumerism... and it is scary. But the characters are so goddamned beautiful—and the ways that they learn to carry on and find hope and happiness... well, it's inspiring.

Solitaire - Kelley Eskridge
Such a great book! So much to think about in this one. And such wonderful characters. I love books that take me deep into the mind of another... and this one is all about living inside. I'll be reading this one again before long, and I can hardly wait for the forthcoming film adaptation, OtherLife.

Three Songs for Roxy - Caren Gussoff
Beautiful and brilliant novella. I loved every word of it! It's an aliens-among-us story... but more than that, it's story about people and commonalities despite apparent differences... and embracing love when and where it finds you.

Experimental Film - Gemma Files
So creepy and awesome! The characters feel like people you know (some like the people you wish you didn't know), their fears and motivations become your own. The gods and ghosts that affect them will haunt and harass you, and you'll never be able to unsee the images that this book projects onto your brain. But you'll be glad that you read it... and, like me, you'll be eager for more of Files' fiction.

Shelter - Susan Palwick
Lovely, amazing book about empathy and forgiveness and transformation... and artificial intelligence and high-tech houses and robot companions. Art, science, religion, philosophy, technology, medicine, psychology—these are the threads of which Shelter is woven... but the tapestry itself is a story—the story of a person and of the lives that that person touches, loves, tortures, serves, protects, and destroys... and of how that person is, over the course of her life, transformed and redeemed. Read the book and you'll be transformed too... for the better.

The Devourers - Indrapramit Das
Where do I even begin. This book dug its claws into me and tore me apart—completely shredded me... and then it ate me alive, spat out the bones, set them on fire, and then coaxed a phoenix of pure, elated joy from my ashes. This book... this fucking book... Holy hell! It is THE book.
Oh... but it's not available just yet in the USA. You can get hold of the Penguin India edition if you hunt around, or hold tight till summer of 2016, when it'll be published in the USA by Del Rey (put it on your wish lists and start asking your libraries and bookstores to order it as soon as it's available).

Look to Windward - Iain M. Banks
Good book. Not my favorite of his, perhaps, but still, amazing. Of course, to say that a book is not my favorite Iain M. Banks book is like saying that Laphroaig 10 isn't my favorite Laphroaig: no, this isn't the Iain M. Banks book that I would put at the top of my list, but it's still an Iain M. Banks Culture novel, so it's gonna be high on any list of SF books I ever assemble.

All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders
Easily one of my favorite books of the year—of the decade, even. A masterful marriage of science fiction and fantasy in a book that glows with fun and joy. It's exciting, romantic, smart, funny, inspiring—it's everything that a book should be... oh... everything except available. But don't worry. It'll be on shelves just 27 days from now (January 26, 2016!). So hurry up and preorder it! You will LOVE it.

In progress: Lament for the Afterlife - Lisa Hannett
I'm only a quarter of the way in, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be among the best of the best of the past several years. I won't say more yet, but wow... it's something new and amazing. Go buy it and read it so that we can talk about it.


And then there are two others that I read and loved but that aren't available yet. I did get permission from the authors to talk about them, though (hence this updated version of the post... for those of you who read the original), so here we go:

The Riverbank - Kij Johnson
The Wind In the Willows has always been one of my favorite books. I think I've read it at least five times. I can hardly wait to read it to my girls. But it has some problems. Mostly... where the hell are all the female animals?
In Kij's masterful sequel, The Riverbank, (Small Beer Press, 2017) this problem is remedied! AND the story is brilliant. SO MUCH FUN! It is a perfect, natural extension of Kenneth Graham's classic—both a worthy homage from a loving fan and an ingenious extrapolation by one of the best writers. In Riverbank, the characters with whom I grew up continue their adventures (or their attempts to avoid adventure), but they are joined by several folk, all of whom instantly feel as though they've always been part of the story, and now, in my mind, are as essential to my experience of this world as Mole, Rat, Badger, and Mr. Toad.
I am immensely excited for this book to be released to the world.

Icarus Kids - Helen Marshall
This long-awaited debut novel from World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of the collections, Gifts For the One Who Comes After and Hair Side, Flesh Side, is everything I could possibly have hoped for. And more. If you've read Helen's stories, you already know that she is one of the most talented, capable, and original writers alive today (or ever!), but getting to sink into an entire novel's worth of her writing—to inhabit the lives and minds of her characters, to learn, love, and fear their world in depth, and to experience their transformations—is a literary treat of delightful (and frightful!) immensity. Is it fantasy? Horror? Science Fiction? Magical Realism? Yes. But does its classification matter? No. Icarus Kids is. Read it (once it's available) and you'll understand that that is what matters.


Comics / Graphic Novels
I'm not going to say anything about the ongoing series, but if they're on this list, it means that I think they're great (I started a whole lot more series this year that I didn't like well enough to mention).

Saga - Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
(ongoing)

Ms. Marvel - G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona
(ongoing)

We Stand On Guard - Brian K. Vaughan & Steve Skroce
(ongoing)

Sex Criminals - Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky
(ongoing)

Daytripper - Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá
Okay... I just read this one last week and it may just be my favorite graphic novel ever. Granted, I haven't actually read very many comics or graphic novels, but still... this would easily be among the best books of any sort that I've read. So, so good.

Unwritten - Mike Carey & Peter Gross
(ongoing)

Live at GigaNotoSaurus: MY STORY!!!

I am delighted to announce that my science fiction story, Nine Instances of Rain, which I workshopped with Connie Willis during Clarion West 2012, is now published and available to read (for free!) at GigaNotoSaurus.org.

Enjoy!

A Year of Reading

After reading Tina Connolly's recent post about what she's read in the past year, I decided to do the same. For now, though, mine is just a list of titles. Maybe if I find time, I'll come back and flesh this out a bit.

I'm pretty sure that this list isn't complete (I'll add more as I remember them), and I'm not sure that all of these were actually read during the 2013 calendar year (I might have read a few of them in the final months of 2012). In any case, I only listed books that I'd recommend reading.

I also read a few hundred short stories (many of them were slush for a magazine and many others were works-in-progress, by friends), but I'll save my list of them (the published ones) for another (unlikely to ever materialize) post.

Oh, and I haven't finished Nicola Griffith's Hild yet, but it's shaping up to be one of the best books ever. Really. Go out and buy it, people. It is truly amazing. I can hardly wait to get back to it. In fact... why the heck am I blogging when I could be reading Hild?

Enough said. Here's the list:

Novels
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks
Among Others by Jo Walton
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
The Shining and Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi
The Age of Ice by J.M. Sidorova
Hild by Nicola Griffith

Comics and Graphic Novels
Locke & Key (vols. 1-5) by Joe Hill
From Hell by Alan Moore
Saga (vols. 1-2) by Brian K. Vaughan

Short Fiction Collections and Anthologies
Hair Side, Flesh Side by Helen Marshall
At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson
Remember Why You Fear Me by Robert Shearman
Unpossible by Daryl Gregory
Telling Tales: The Clarion West 30th Anniversary Anthology

Nonfiction
The Big Burn by Timothy Egan

The Next Big Thing

This is my response to a "blog survey" about my Work in Progress. I was tagged for this by Carlie. Others of my Clarion West 2012 cohort who have been tagged on this include Alyc, Cory, Helen, Kim, Blythe, and Georgina.

Here goes.


1. What is the title of your Work in Progress?

The Resurrectionist


2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

As faithful readers will no doubt recall, I sometimes post my daily timed writing exercises on this blog. Some of them I later develop into longer pieces. Most of them are responses to lines pulled randomly from books around the house—lines taken completely out of context.

Back in February, I wrote on a prompt from one of H.G. Wells' late (and lesser-known) works, The Happy Turning. Later, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, I developed it into a short story. I had so much fun writing it, and received so many intriguing suggestions from my colleagues and the instructor of the week (Stephen Graham Jones), that I began to think of it as the beginning of a novel.

Today, as I was going through my timed writing exercises, looking for the one mentioned above, I found several others, with related themes (here, here, and here). It seems that my mind has been delving into (and back out of) the grave rather frequently.


3. What genre does your book fall under?

Hmmmm... difficult question. At the risk of giving too much away, I think of it as paranormal horror, disguised as a light-hearted science-fiction adventure.


4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I've never been one to generate a clear picture of what characters look like in books that I'm reading. The same goes for characters that I write. When it matters, for any story reason, I'll describe elements of their appearance, but when it comes down to it, I really don't care what faces my characters have in the minds of readers. I want readers to supply the face that works for them. I am, therefore, sorely tempted to boycott this question altogether.

However, to engage the spirit of the survey, I'll give it a try. But only for two of my characters, and I reserve the right to come back and alter this post later, should the faces of these actors begin to exert too heavy an influence on the natural evolution of my creations.

Ella Ferry, the protagonist, is in her mid-sixties, and is a smart, crusty, wiry, curmudgeon. Life (and a few of life's less savory emissaries) have dealt her a pretty shitty hand, but she manages to get the job done and to sort out whatever (and whoever) needs sorting. My top picks to play her would be Frances McDormand or Sigourney Weaver.

Turner Luce, a sophisticated but rather unpleasant character about whom I shouldn't divulge too much, might be well played by Ralph Fiennes or Clive Owen.


5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of the book?

In the near future, technology that restores deceased persons to life proves to be a blessing for some, a curse for many, and, for a privileged few, one hell of a business opportunity.


6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The latter, if I'm lucky. If not... well, we'll just see how desperate I get. I don't particularly like the idea of self-publishing, as I'd rather not have to deal with any aspect of the process besides writing. Agents and publishers play important roles in turning a book into something that people might actually want to read. I'd like my novel to benefit from such expertise.


7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Ha ha ha ha. Good one. First draft? Past tense? Ask me again when I've written a first draft and I'll be delighted to tell you.


8. What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

Um... we may have encountered a problem here. Although I'm sure there's nothing truly original about my novel, I'm at a loss when it comes to comparisons. I read mostly hard SF and literary classics, with a bit of fantasy and modern literary tossed into the mix. Books that feel similar to some of what I'd like to capture in this novel include:
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (for dark, creepy, moral ambiguity)
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (for on-the-road--or river--adventure with plenty of humor)
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (for tumbleweeds, old-west feel, religious zealotry, and guns-a-blazing)
The Queen of the South by Arturo Perez-Reverte (would-be damsel-in-distress defying expectations to become kick-ass, uber-pragmatic, violent-when-necessary kingpin)
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton (for secretive organizations, plot reversals, and the-completely-unexpected-seems-inevitable-ness)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (for freaked-out, substance-fueled humor, sheer paranoia, and dry, dusty, road-trip-through-the-American-Southwest mystique)


9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Part of this is answered above in question 2, but I suppose that some of my underlying interest in the idea of corporeal resurrection stems from growing up with people who believe in a literal resurrection of the dead. This novel is not a commentary on any specific religious beliefs (the mechanisms of resurrection in my story have nothing to do with those suggested by Christian traditions), but tales that I heard as a child, from both the New and Old Testaments of the Christian Bible, may have planted early seeds this project.

That would be the "what" part. As for the "who," most of the credit goes to my Clarion West cohort and Stephen Graham Jones, for giving me such enthusiastic feedback on the short story, and for giving me so many additional ideas about where I might take it.

Also, in that this story features a tough, practical, often abrasive, but ultimately caring woman as the protagonist, it is certainly inspired by many such real-life women who I know or have known.


10. What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

I will include realistic details about disease, death, and mortal remains—information gleaned from medical training (especially from forensic pathology rotations). It will be set largely in wastelands of the American Southwest, but segments of the story will occur in cities as well. I intend to explore the fuzzy line between incomprehensible technology and old-fashioned magic, and whether the distinction even matters.

Mostly, though, I just want to create something fun—fun to write and fun to read. I've been writing sad stories lately, and I want to see what it feels like to laugh and smile while typing, so if I succeed, readers can expect to be entertained.

Armstrong's Moon

Plenty has been said about a man whose most lauded deed (in mankind's collective memory) was done nine and a half years before I was born.

I don't really know very much about Neil Armstrong. He was, for me, as a child, more of a symbol than a person. I fantasized about the idea of being a Neil Armstrong more than I ever worked towards becoming one. I understand now, better than I did as a child, how unlikely it is that I will ever follow in his "small step." Even so, it was dreams of that step, dreamt as a small child, and expression of those dreams, that prompted parents and aunts and uncles to tell me, if you want to be an astronaut, you have to be good at math and science.

I don't know... maybe I would have pursued an education in science even if I hadn't spent my early years in the afterglow of the Apollo program. I don't think so. I think that all of the buzz about moon landings and the new Space Shuttle program that followed had a huge influence on my thinking. I believe that I am who I am today, in part, because of Neil Armstrong and the dreams that he and his colleagues inspired.

There are many photographs of the moon available online. Some amazing ones. Enjoy them.

Here is one that I took tonight, minutes after learning of Neil Armstrong's death.

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. Rest in peace.

Post Clarion West Post

And now it's all over.

Our final instructor, Chuck Palahniuk, said that every story should have death in it somewhere—and also a birth. After six weeks of living in a house with seventeen other people—all amazingly creative, generous, talented, and loving—disbanding the fellowship is something like a death. But a litter of eighteen newborn writers are puking and mewling in the aftermath, digesting the rich nutrition fed them over the past six weeks of gestation, converting it to writerly bones and muscles, preparing to spring forth and fly high.

One death and eighteen births: Good ratio.

And my plan going forward... write like hell and hope it's all for something.

...and so it begins.

In a few short minutes I will attend the first orientation meeting for the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and then, for the following six weeks, I'll be writing... and learning to write, and writing, and reading others' writing, and writing, and hearing all about what's wrong with my writing, and writing, and writing, and writing.

If I get time, I'll drop a few notes here about how things are going, but if you don't see anything, don't worry. I'm probably still alive.

Cheers.

Cat Rambo Workshops

I'm currently taking a series of SF/Fantasy writing workshops from Northwest author Cat Rambo. The sessions are taught online, using Google+ Hangout, which is proving to be an ideal tool for the job.

We're halfway through the series and it has already been immensely helpful. Cat is an excellent instructor with a wealth of experience in writing, editing, and teaching. It has also evolved into an amazing networking opportunity, as I've been able to interact with the other students, and, in some cases, with their writing networks as well.

Cat will be offering several additional workshops over the coming months, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in writing SF, fantasy, horror... or just about any other type of fiction. And just in case... here's the full URL to her workshop page:

http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/2012/01/04/online-classes-and-workshops-for-2012/

Go forth and register!

a long time coming

As faithful followers of this blog will note, an indecently long interval has passed since last I posted. That's life. I neither offer excuse nor beg forgiveness.

Tonight, however, I'm inspired to write (at least a short little blurb), if for no other reason, to draw your attention to the change in the above description of this blot. Where the subheading used to refer to yours truly as an "intermittently disillusioned pathology resident," or some such bunk, I've now assumed a new identity. Yes, I am a hopelessly chronic case of academic addiction.

Of course I have a fairly good idea of where to lay the blame for this intellectual dependency. Don't quote me on the (pseudo)science here, but my impression is that people who are denied a certain substance or experience throughout enough of their formative years, are more likely to develop unhealthy attachments to such vices later in life.

I was home-schooled for the first eleven years of my education, so whereas most people develop a healthy balance of respect, disdain, appreciation and general apathy for formal education by the time they get through college, once I started taking classes at the local community college at age 18, I was hooked. A hopeless junkie for life. And like any addict, I rode the crest of an initial wave of academic ecstasy (top of all of my classes, prize pupil of all of my instructors) and thought that it would last forever. Neurotransmitters become exhausted, receptors become saturated, and all junkies must ultimately crash. I managed to graduate from college with a decent GPA, but that was in no way due to my last two quarters. And by the time I'd finished my last class, I was more than ready to (as PGW would so eloquently put it) part brass rags with the whole academic mess and just settle down to work for a while.

That "while" lasted just over a year, after which I found myself studying for an MPH in International Health and Development at Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The thrill of that first big hit after a respectable piece of abstinence put me over the edge and I took the big step down the path into darkness: I applied to medical schools.

Eight years later, I've finished my medical training (four years for the MD and another four of pathology residency), and what do I do? Do I call it quits for good, get a job, and contribute to this blessed capitalist abomination in which I live? Nope... the "dark passenger" was too strong (as the eponymous hero of another of my guilty vices, the Showtime series Dexter might say).

I have fallen into the epitome of academic intellectually masturbatory depravity: the PhD! This time I'll focus on Environmental and Occupational Health (after four years of diagnosing death and disease, I'd really like to get involved in the preventative end of things).

So... am I full of guilt and self-loathing? Am I writhing in an agony of ecstatic despair for my hopeless condition?

Well... classes start the day after tomorrow, and actually, I'm pretty damned happy about whole thing. (AAaaahhhh... the sweet rush of that first taste... a stronger cut... a new, exotic flavor... my next fix).

a word about a word... and about apples

By the way... the title of the previous post refers to an example of one of the many things that I loved about the book Anathem. Stephenson has the most elegant gift for politely drawing the reader's attention to the etymologies of words that we use without a second thought. Data is one of these. Frequently throughout the story, as characters engage in philosophical or scientific discussions, they refer to the "the givens" -- that is the pieces of raw information on which further arguments may be based. At one point in the story a character refers to the discipline of Datonomy and the person with whom he is conversing recognizes this as the naming of "the givens." When I read that my mind went wild, started racing, knowing that I knew the connection but couldn't quite access it. "Data, datum, dat, date, dato, da..." and there it was: dar! The Spanish verb meaning to give.

In all of my years of education, studying sciences, statistics, even a bit of the philosophy of science, I'd been using the word data every day without even considering its root. And that insignificant little passage in Anathem was what finally brought it all home. Data (singular, datum) must be derived from the same root word as dar, hence a datum is a gift.

It puts a whole new spin on the language of basic scientific investigation. Data, which so often is seen as the raw output of an experiment -- the stuff that needs to be analyzed and refined before it assumes the far more noble and desirable status of information is, in its essence, the gift given to the investigator... and like all gifts (if they are truly given freely), it is up to the investigator to decide how best to use (or abuse) them. The gift itself is neither good nor bad. It is raw material that is waiting to be utilized. Like all gifts, data is sometimes deserved and sometimes not, and it is up to the recipient of the gift to recognize the value of the data... or not. There are many examples of seemingly serendipitous scientific discoveries. Careful examination of these tales will usually reveal that the hero had spent years (even decades) working hard, slogging away at a problem, and without that preparation, would not likely have been in the necessary frame of mind to recognize the value of the discovery. All the same... Fleming's agar plates did grow mold (an accident -- a gift), leading to the discovery of penicillin; Röntgen's cardboard barrier turned out not to be as opaque as he'd assumed (an accident -- a gift), leading to the discovery of X-rays; Jenner happened to pay attention to the wive's tale (another gift) about milk maids not getting smallpox, leading to the development of all subsequent vaccines; and maybe... just maybe... an apple fell on Newton's head.

OK... so most don't believe that a falling apple had much (if anything) to do with Newton's descriptions of this revolutionary force called gravity. All the same, it's become the symbol of serendipitous scientific discovery. Interesting that it's also the symbol of something else: sin. Or is it? Not really... the "apple" that Eve takes from the tree isn't the sin. The sin is the fact that she's taking it when told not to, and that is entirely beside the point (for now). The apple is the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That's right... knowledge!!! The tree is the source of the knowledge. Just like data -- the raw pieces of stuff that are turned into information -- are the source of human knowledge -- the gift. Yeah... I'm stretching a bit now and I hope you'll all pounce with criticism, but still, the symbolism is just begging to be seen. And I'm certainly not the first to see it. Check out Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials! That tree of knowledge is the ultimate gift, the datum from which comes information -- information that accumulates to become knowledge and knowledge that is necessary to build a meaningful understanding of one the world in which we live. And remind me... who was it that told Eve not to eat of the fruit of that tree? Oh yeah... him again.

A datum from Neal Stephenson

A few days ago I finished reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem. It was one of the most enjoyable and satisfying books that I've ever read. As I told a friend when I was only a quarter of the way through it, reading Anathem felt like drinking a very rich, full-bodied wine (thinkAmorone or Barolo). It's an incredibly complex book that is still delightfully accessible. It's got layers upon layers of physic, philosophy, cosmology, culture and humor all tied up in a damn fine story. The book to which I'd be most likely to compare it is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. The above mentioned friend, George, who is something of an expert on many of the topics covered by the book—a professional, in fact (he's a professor of philosophy)—wrote a review of Anathem that I encourage you all to read (don't worry -- it won't ruin the story if you read the review first!). George's review does more justice to the book than I ever could, so I'll conclude by saying that if you don't read Anathem you're denying yourself one of the finest literary treats to be had, and although the 1000-ish-pagedness of the tome turned me off for almost a year, by the time I'd read 100 pages, I was wishing the book was at least 3000!

Brazil, East Berlin and the End of the World

I recently watched two movies back to back. The first was Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others); the second was Brazil. Friend and fellow blogger Areophany of Martian Utopia Cafe was present for the first of these and wrote a short review of it, complete with links to the trailer, music and other reviews.

The second film, Brazil is not set in the country of that name. Its title refers to the song Aquarela do Brazil, known in Anglophone lands simply as Brazil. According to legend, director and co-writer Terry Gilliam was inspired to create the film when he encountered a man listening to the song on a portable radio while sitting all alone on an overcast day in the middle of a desolate coal-strewn beach somewhere in the UK. The contrast between the upbeat sunny cheer of the music and the oppressive tenor of the surroundings moved Gilliam to reflect on humanity in the face of adversity and out of these reflections was born one of the finest films of the last century.

Since watching the two films, I have found myself pondering their commonalities and the relative positions and motivations of their principle characters. There are two important characters in The Lives of Others: Gerd Wiesler, the high ranking secret police officer and Georg Dreyman, the playwright to whose life Wiesler listens with great interest (and ill intent). There is really only one central character in Brazil, the protagonist Sam Lowry. He is a nobody, a simple cog in the huge Orwellian complex of government ministries (Information Adjustment, Information Dispersal, Information Retrieval, etc.) that ostensibly protect the populace from a terrorist campaign of bombings that is well into its second decade ("beginners luck" as a high ranking official jovially pronounces).

The worlds of Brazil and The Lives of Others are both governed by oppressive authoritarian structures that thrive on media censorship, pro-state propaganda and invasive surveillance of their citizens. In both worlds the a range of responses is exhibited by the citizens to their state: complicity, cowed cooperation, sneaky little low-risk rebellions (watching old movies on work time) and premeditated covert actions that would be considered criminal by the state. There are plenty of movies and books about heroes rising from such environments -- people recognizing that the systems under which they live are intolerable and unjustifiable and then taking action (small or large) against said systems. Some of these stories are inspiring, some depressing, many both. The best ones are those that get me thinking hard about my own life, culture, government, media and the threats, real or imagined, that face me today or in the future.

My fantasies tend to spin out of control. In one possible future I see an intrusive Big Brother looking over my shoulder at every turn and me living in constant fear that any little unpatriotic turn of phrase or anomalous facial expression will provoke a bag over my head and a quick trip in an windowless panel wagon to a dank interrogation cell. Another scenario is largely inspired by a recent visit to the top floor of the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., where I gained a new appreciation for how easily a desperate, scared and adequately uneducated people can be led to tolerate and even support utter atrocity through calculated use of well designed media campaigns. I extrapolate from the currently vague and intermittent alignment of the modern media giants and the military industrial complex to a vast empire of multinational corporations that entirely supplant traditional government as such and control the flow of information to the masses so thoroughly and artfully that while everyone believes that the media is free, unfettered and honest, in fact every bit of information consumed is a carefully engineered fabrication, custom designed for each consumer, resulting in a population that can be controlled and directed to the finest degree without inspiring more than the most fleeting impressions of invasion or oppression. There are innumerable variations on the fantasy futures that play through my mind, but they all come down to the same basics: a corrupt and powerful few dictating the activities of the people by means of force, fear, deceit and manipulation.

In watching these two films back to back, rather than feeling the usual dread and nausea in the pit of my stomach, I found myself feeling impatient. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear or read of another outrageous assault on freedom, humanity, civil rights or information and yet despite it all, my life goes on as usual. I eat the same good food, sleep in the same warm bed, receive the same monthly direct deposit paycheck and fumble, as usual, through my tax return. When is all the shit going to finally hit the fan? When is the horror going to come to my door? When do I get the chance to find out what I'm really made of? Am I a Sam Lowry, content to roll along with the tide of a depraved culture until it becomes so screwed up and insane that I'm forced to react? Am I Georg Dreyman, cognitive of the problems that surround me, fully aware of the corruption at the top and of the helplessness of those at the bottom, maybe a little bit smug in my superior understanding and occasionally trying to express myself (without risking too much) through some carefully crafted work of art? Or am I a Gerd Wiesler? Will I be a servant of the regime until some especially poignant ray of humanity illuminates my world, allows me to clearly see how vile I have become and inspires me to change, even if it means suffering the frightful consequences of spurning the powers at the top? Or maybe that ray will never shine through and I'll just keep doing as I'm told until I die, always relatively comfortable, relatively secure, relatively guilty, relatively damned.

Let's spice up the pot and add another story to the mix: V for Vendetta. The movie or the graphic novel, take your pick, they're both excellent. Here we're given a few more kinds of responses to a very 1984-esque civilization. In addition to an almost Gerd Wiesler type in policeman Dominic Stone, we've got the titular character, V, a victim of state sanctioned human experimentation who has become a masked vigilante, out to destroy the evil government. Evey Hammond is a young woman working for the government's media arm, a Sam Lowry sort of character who undergoes a thorough transformation, eventually taking up V's mantle as the righteous champion of truth and freedom. V's character raises the idea of outright and even violent rebellion that leads to massive revolution. So in any of my envisioned dystopic futures, what is the chance of such a hero emerging? What is the chance that I could be him or at least his next Evey Hammond?

But there's another future that I consider to be far more plausible than any of the above -- one that is eloquently sampled at multiple time points in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. This book, which reads with a sensuous fluidity of phrase that is almost poetry, is a series of nested stories, each told in a different voice and a very different style. Each story is, in one way or another, linked to the previous, and together they span a period of time beginning in the mid-19th century and ending in an undefined future -- probably around 2150, give or take. In that future civilization has crumbled in ruin. Humans still exist, but they have reverted to a primitive tribal existence in which artifacts of (our) modern technology are curiosities, day-to-day survival is a struggle and human lifespans have dwindled back to the preindustrial standards of 20-50 years. In the book this future has followed a peak in technological and industrial progress that is just a little beyond our current state and that is accompanied by a system of governments and media that seems only a little more authoritarian and propagandist, respectively, than our own. The specific sequence of events that leads humanity from their advanced state of civilization to near ruin is not described in detail, but there are plenty of hints, many of which point to the all too real effects of climate change.

And that brings us to the next segment of this sprawling ramble of a blog post. With increasingly hostile weather on the coasts and droughts inland, the habitable and arable regions of the globe will soon have shrunk to such an extent that there will be widespread famine, which will, in turn, lead to conflict. The vectors that carry infectious diseases will converge on these same geographic areas and with increased temperature and humidity, they will thrive and fueling monstrous epidemics of death and suffering. As material and energy resources fail and looting of all types of productive facilities becomes rampant antibiotics and other simple medications will become unavailable. Those with guns and the will to use them will maintain their way of life for a little longer than others, but in doing so will have already sacrificed some part of their humanity. A few isolated groups may succeed in eking out a decent existence, at least for as long as they can remain undiscovered by the ever increasing numbers of desperately looting hoards. Science, art, music, literature -- much of what we love and enjoy in life will disappear as the struggle for survival comes to dominate all motivations.

It's a bleak future. I don't like it, but I think it's quite probable. I probably won't survive to see it achieve such extremes, but unless I die young, I'm sure that I'll see the beginnings of the fall. I expect to see costs of food, land, housing, health care and transportation rise to the point that those of us now living comfortable middle class lives will be making due in small apartments on very simple diets, farming every scrap of yard we can find and celebrating once or twice a year with a bottle of wine. I expect that after a relative peak in intrusive policing and surveillance and mind-directing media campaigns, a resource strained government will discover that its population is so focused on the basics of survival that such high-tech control measures are no longer necessary and that a few token food handouts along with occasional shows of force are more than adequate to maintain a semblance of order (think Soylent Green)... until everything falls apart completely and anarchy (so long idealized in the setting of adequate resources) shows its ugly side.

Over the course of a few centuries things might recover to some extent. Once industry has ground to a halt and the planet has had a few hundred years to recover from at least a little of the damage we've done, civilization may have a chance to grow again (assuming the human race has not gone extinct). And what would that recovery look like? The best depiction that I've encountered is in the fourth (and final) book of Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series, The Sky Road. In MacLeod's version of the future civilization hasn't fallen quite so low as I expect it to, so the world of Sky Road may be a little brighter than reality, but it gives a good feel for the struggle to somehow regain a hint of humanity's glory days.

So now I've rambled far from my initial topics and have touched on many more works of film and literature than I'd initially intended. Humor me though, as I introduce another -- one that has aided me in my search for a meaningful response to the horrors and desperation to come. Author Stephen Baxter wrote a story called Last Contact (included in the 2008 collection of The Year's Best Science Fiction. It is an end-of-the-world story. The projected End has nothing to do with climate change, but is due, rather, to a massive cosmological event far beyond any human influence. Destruction of the planet is assured and unavoidable. Reactions vary, but one of the central characters in the story is a member of a team of scientists expending every last ounce of its energies to study the phenomenon that is soon to be its destruction. They do this knowing that it will do them no good, but hoping that just maybe, should another intelligence come afterward and attempt to make sense of what has happened, a faint impression of their work, a shadow of a signature of their research might remain and be of benefit.

The scale of the destruction portrayed in Baxter's story is far in excess of that which I foresee; the emotions evoked are similar though. I see monumental and inevitable doom and gloom ahead. I have spent much of the past year intermittently depressed, wishing that the world would come to its senses in time, change its ways and rescue itself. This wish will not be fulfilled. The end is nigh, as Watchmen's Rorschach's sign reads. There's nothing that I or anyone can do now. The damage is beyond humans' capacity for repair. So now that it's settled, now that I am convinced that the destruction of civilization as we know it is assured, what do I do?

When King David's first son by Bathsheba was sick, David fasted and prayed for a week, pleading for the child's life and making himself generally miserable in his anguish. When the child died, however, "David rose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the LORD and worshiped; he then went to his own house; and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. Then his servants said to him, 'What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive; but when the child died, you rose and ate food.' He said, 'While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me, and the child may live. But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?'" (NRSV)

The horse has left the barn. King David's child is dead. I can stop mourning and wishing and hoping. From here on out I understand that destruction is a foregone conclusion. As horrible and regrettable as this is in the global sense, on a personal level it is a strange relief. Instead of wallowing grief and anguish I can now focus on what can be done. I cannot stop climate change and the four horsemen that will accompany it, but maybe in studying it, studying the human health effects associated with climate change I will be able to contribute some tiny grain of useful information that may survive the dark ages ahead and assist a future human race as it seeks to pull itself from the rubble and slowly rebuild. This is optimistic and ultimately just another fantasy, but it is something and it gives me a reason to go on... some meaning.

It also allows me to focus on how much I love of the life that I currently live. I don't know when the shit will hit the fan, and maybe I'll be lucky enough not to see it, but I know it's coming and this knowledge makes every moment of comfort, beauty and pleasure that I enjoy now all the more valuable. Since coming to terms with the end of the world as I know it, relationships have grown more valuable to me, natural beauty more moving, music sweeter, food tastier, sex more intensely pleasurable, wine more satisfying, books more engaging. Everything I touch and experience today may be taken from me as the world descends into chaos, but the memories that I make now will not desert me and if I am in one of the last generations to enjoy everything good that this civilization has to offer, I'm going to savor every second of it, soak up all of it and be ready to contribute to the oral traditions that may keep a glimmer of humanity alive through the long winter. I'm not likely to have the opportunity to be Sam Lowry, Evey Hammond, Gerd Wiesler, Georg Dreyman or V, as those characters are all products of civilizations, which flawed though they might be, are relatively stable. No, I am more likely to be Sol Roth, the old geezer sharing space in a tiny apartment, pouring over the occasional book and telling the next generation about real food from the good old days.

Then again, the best way to ensure that a particular version of the future never happens exactly as predicted is to foretell it as certainty -- G. K. Chesterton's game of Cheat the Prophet. So maybe even now, as I commit my ideas to this electronic page, I am doing my part to avert one of a thousand possible dismal future. Now for the other nine hundred ninety-nine.

Someone's Thoughts on Avatar

I have not written a post about Avatar myself. I had considered doing so. I've seen the movie twice and I enjoyed it very much both times. I felt that to write about it, however, would require an investment of time that I did not have available. Fortunately, plenty of others have written about it, and I have read many reviews and critiques. Today I discovered what, in my opinion, is the finest review of the film out there, by Andries du Toit, author of the blog, A Subtle Knife. It hits everything that I would have tried to address, plus a whole lot more... and it even refers to two of my favorite works of literature along the way: The Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials. Give it a read... it'll be well worth your time spent.

Soon To Be Read

My previous post was about the last book that I finished reading. This is about the next one that I plan to start (not likely to be the next book that I finish, as I've got several others in progress already): Anathem by Neal Stephenson. The massive hard-bound book was given to me by one of my colleagues over a year ago and it has been sitting on a shelf taunting me ever since. My attention was recently redirected to Anathem by a friend (and frequent blog commenter), George Berger, who has just had his highly eloquent, expertly informed and intelligently critical review of Anathem published on The Zone, a prominent magazine-style website devoted to Science Fiction. Congratulations George! I know, based on George's review and the recommendations of other friends, that I will thoroughly enjoy the book. The two reasons that I've taken so long to start it are 1) that I'm pretty sure that I will be entirely absorbed by it and will have difficulty doing anything productive until it's finished and 2) it's so damned big that it'll be a royal pain in the ass to haul around with me. The second obstacle was recently eliminated when I received a Kindle for my birthday and promptly downloaded Anathem. As for the first problem... well, I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

Recently Read

Yesterday I finished reading China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. I'm not sure how to even begin to describe it: there are so many overlapping genres and themes represented that to start by calling it science fiction or fantasy or social commentary and then adding appropriate modifiers and descriptors seems inadequate. It was certainly an enjoyable read -- one of those books that consumed my waking (and often sleeping) consciousness and that kept me happily distracted from many other activities, obligations and other stressors (as you may have noticed, my blogging has fallen off of late) -- and even as mere entertainment for its own sake, this book is well worth reading. My own ambivalence about whether to call it fantasy or science fiction is reflected in the variety of awards and honors that the book has received (or for which it has been nominated). When talking to people about the book over the past few weeks I have most often described it as a science fiction novel set in a fantasy world. Yes, there are all manner of strange fantastical creatures coinhabiting the city of New Crobuzon in the world of Bas-Lag, and yes, there is magic (referred to as thaumaturgy) scattered fairly heavily throughout, but the protagonist, Isaac Grimnebulin, is a freelance scientist who seems to approach these magical aspects of his world (as any scientist should) as though they are merely phenomena that have yet to be adequately investigated. He is only really interested in thaumaturgy, however, to the extent that it can help him further his real work: demonstration and utilization of a theoretical virtually limitless source of energy. Early in the novel Grimnebulin is contracted to help a formerly winged creature (whose wings were taken as punishment for an unspeakable crime) regain the power of flight. As he explores the various approaches to the problem, Grimnebulin collects a vast array of winged animals for study, some of which are far more dangerous than he initially realizes. In his frenzy for knowledge and successful completion of his project, he unwittingly unleashes a creature that threatens the existence of all sentient being in New Crobuzon. Most of the book follows Grimnebulin and his various companions and acquaintances as they seek to control this unholy terror, and the slimily disgusting and horrifically painful ordeals that they endure along the way are described so skillfully that as a reader I found myself cringing, crying and cowering along with them. I could go on describing the story, but ultimately it wasn't the story itself that kept me reading -- it was the characters. They are drawn with incredible depth and their conflicts (both internal and external) are explored with elegant finesse. Grimnebulin, for example, is an overweight scientist who has abandoned the mainstream academic world in order to have more freedom to pursue his somewhat unorthodox ideas. He has been careful not to burn bridges however, and maintains frequent (if somewhat strained) relations with his former mentor and the University. As might be expected of a freelance scientist, he's constantly struggling for funding and New Crobuzon doesn't seem to offer much in the way of grants for independent investigators. So when a lucrative offer comes along he is forced to balance the practical demands of life against his driving intellectual passions. He also has another passion: his Khepri girlfriend, Lin. The Khepri are a species whose females have humanoid bodies with giant scarab bodies for for their heads (yes, I had a hard time with this at first too -- there's no hint of how such a race might have evolved -- but eventually Mieville's writing helped me overcome my doubts and just accept it) and interspecies relationships between humans and Khepri are taboo at best. Lin is an artist, however, and among her avant-garde circle of friends she is allowed to be a little more open about Grimnebulin than Grimnebulin can be about her with his academic crowd. This asymetry in the relationship leads, predictably, to tensions that are just a small sample of the interspecies (and inter-class) tensions that abound throughout the city. So where are we now... we've got a science fiction story set in a fantasy world that is replete with magic, monsters and complex relationships... What else can we add to the mix? How about AI? Yes, artificial intelligence plays a big role in the story too, as some of the steampunk robots (or constructs, as they are called) develop viruses that usually result in system failure, but very rarely lead to self-awareness. The difference between artificial intelligence and the consciousness of living organisms becomes very important as the two classes of intelligent beings alternately collaborate with and antagonize one another in their efforts to control the devastation being visited upon New Crobuzon. Tying the story together and serving as periodic interludes are the first-person, present-tense reflections of Grimnebulin's un-winged flight-hungry client who comes from a very different part of Bas-Lag and whose values and perspectives differ greatly from those of the rest of the characters. His story is both inspiring and tragic, and is only fully revealed at the conclusion of the book... a conclusion, I might add, that feels far more like that of a modern literary novel than that of an action filled SF or fantasy thriller. It's a conclusion which does not bring resolution of many many of the story strings and which will probably leave many readers feeling unsatisfied. I found it pleasantly credible, however, as in (at least my own experience of) real life, the endpoints of the various processes, projects and problems rarely coincide. So give it a read... and let me know what you think. It's one of the stranger more unexpected books I've read in quite some time.

Power

One of my favorite quotes about power is from Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune:

"It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible."

This is part of longer passage about the failings of governments:

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

The theme is repeated elsewhere throughout the book:

"Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect all who seek it."

...and...

"We should grant power over affairs only to those who are reluctant to hold it and then only under conditions that increase the reluctance."

I recently read Iain M. Banks new book, Transition, and discovered this particularly eloquent statement of the same basic idea:

"Only people already riddled with the internalized special pleading and self-importance that too much power brings could even start to imagine that this might be in any way sustainable."

It the conclusion of this longer reflection on the problem of life extension and/or immortality for the "wise" and the powerful:

"The old and powerful never want to let go. They always think they're both profoundly indispensable and uniquely right. They are always wrong. Part of the function of aging and dying is to let the next generation have its say, its time in the sun, to sweep away the mistakes of the previous age while, if they're lucky, retaining the advances made and the benefits accrued. It is an insane conceit. Power always drives to perpetuate itself, but this is a phenomenal extra distillation of idiocy. Only people already riddled with the internalized special pleading and self-importance that too much power brings could even start to imagine that this might be in any way sustainable."

These quotes bring to mind a number of current situations. There are myriad obvious examples of corruption among the powerful, but I'm especially struck by the applicability of these quotes to the appalling lack of term limits for elected officials AND the level of compensation enjoyed by such officials.

In my perfect world higher education would be freely available to all and would be a requirement for eligibility to vote. Those who chose to pursue higher education would also be required to repay their years of education in service work, for which they would receive a decent living wage. Those who serve well would be promoted to higher levels of authority—some of them to governing positions, as representatives of their peers—but not to never levels of pay (pay grade during service years would depend on number of dependents in the household). Once their terms of service were complete, they would be returned to the working population and would not be allowed to hold official positions again. If they were particularly passionate or motivated, they would be free to communicate their opinions to their representatives in government; they would have no official say (beyond their vote as an ordinary educated citizen, of course) in matters of state though.

OK. Now, dear readers, please start shooting holes in my utopian scheme so that I can begin work on plugging and repairing them.

Ronnie

Knock.knock.knock.

Today at 10:00 in the morning I am sitting at my computer putting together this week's laboratory medicine quiz for the pathology residents. Which of the following fluids may be transfused simultaneously through an infusion line with red blood cells? I don't actually know the answer off the top of my head, but that doesn't really matter. I just pick questions from a question bank, copy them to the body of an email and send them out to the residents. They have a week in which to send me the answers. At the end of the year the person with highest percentage correct answers will get a cash prize. Usually about $150, but it depends on how generous the attending pathologists feel when I make the rounds, asking for contributions. It's a bit of a pain having to go from office to office, knocking on the doors, asking for contributions for this year's laboratory medicine quiz contest, but in the end all of the pathologists are great about it. They like to see us engaged in friendly intellectual competition and they understand that this is a fun way for us to get ourselves to study some rather dry topics. We're all intelligent, motivated, successful young doctors, after all. Of course they don't mind putting $10 or $20 dollars in the pot for our collective educational motivation.

Knock.knock.knock.

I go to the front door, dreading the possibilities. A pair of young, bright-eyed Jehovah's Witness missionaries for me to deflate with my superior biblical knowledge? A real-estate agent asking permission to post signs in our yard, directing people to his open house? A 2o-year-old single mother of three selling the latest, greatest cleaning supplies that are both environmentally friendly and sure to remove grease, rust, blood, and fruit juice stains from even the stubbornest of surfaces?

Knock.knock.knock.

It's Ronnie.

Ronnie is a young man who lives in the neighborhood with his diabetic father. Ronnie works two part-time minimum wage jobs and does yard work and other odd jobs when he can find them. Ronnie's father is severely disabled, cannot perform any sort of manual labor, and has never been trained for any other type of work. Between Ronnie's meager earnings and his father's social security benefits, the two of them are usually able to pay for rent and utilities, with just a little left for groceries. Ronnie's father is on Medicaid and most of his medications are covered, but there is a $34 copay each month for the insulin to control his blood sugar.

It is winter here and it gets fairly cold at night. The bill for heating gas in the winter months can easily reach four or five times that of the summer months. When forced to choose between paying the gas bill and the copay for his insulin last week, Ronnie's father decided to keep himself and his son warm. He did not tell Ronnie that there had not been enough money for insulin. Ronnie only found out when he found his father on the floor, unconscious and barely breathing. Diabetic ketoacidosis. An ambulance trip. A day and a half of treatment and observation in the emergency room. A day of work lost for Ronnie. Ronnie and his father return home this morning to a house with heat and a little bit of food, but with no $34 for the insulin copay. They will not have $34 dollars again until Ronnie's next paycheck, five days from now.

Knock. knock. knock.

Ronnie hates doing this. He hates having to walk around the neighborhood asking for yard work. He hates knowing that all of us in our warm homes, happy and content with our own lives, will be made to feel uncomfortable by his neediness, by his very existence. He hates knowing that many of us will look through our peep-hole, see a slightly bedraggled young man, and automatically assume that he needs money for his next fix. Ronnie hates to ask for help. He also hates to see his father dying.

Knock. knock. knock.

Ronnie tells me about his last two days in the emergency room with his father. I already know why he is here at my door and I'm desperately trying to think of some odd jobs that I can have him do around the place. $34. On my resident's salary, that's about two hours worth of work. Can I find two hours worth of work for Ronnie to do? Two hours that he'll save me so that I can feel justified giving him the money to keep his father alive? Should I have him pick up the dog shit in our back yard? Should I have him pull weeds from the front yard that is going to be re-landscaped in a couple months anyway? Should I just give him the money and send him away so that I can get on with my day?

Ronnie and his father are a small but fairly representative sample of a huge and rapidly growing segment of our population: the underserved, underemployed, underpaid, and largely unheard poor. The poor. The poor without adequate access to healthcare. The poor without adequate government assistance for food and utilities. The poor who are reminded of how much it sucks to be poor in this country every time they have to ask for help. The poor who were born to the similarly poor. The poor who are marginalized when it comes to educational and employment opportunities. The poor who grow up undernourished because they're eating the shitty processed food that is less expensive per calorie than the healthy balanced diet that their developing bodies and minds really need. The poor who make the rest of us uncomfortable with their very existence. The poor who are desperate and sometimes steal to make ends meet. The poor who suffer at least as much mental illness as the rest of us, but who have virtually no access to treatment for such disease and must therefore self medicate with alcohol and illicit drugs. The poor who commit suicide far more frequently than the rest of us. The poor who are a nuisance to the rest of us, a problem about which we'd rather not have to think. The poor who turn to drugs to temporarily escape their poverty, only to find themselves enslaved to substances and dealers. The poor who cross an arbitrary line in the desert looking for employment, only to be arrested and deported... or to die of thirst under the hot sun when they've lost their way and are afraid to stay close to a road for fear of being arrested. The poor who have seen their mothers and older siblings beaten and raped and therefore figure that it's part of life and don't seek help or refuge when their turn comes. The poor who are far more likely to be murdered. The poor who join gangs and commit horrible acts of violence in an attempt to gain some sense of control and empowerment. The poor who rot in prisons for the rest of their productive lives while their families grow up, grow apart, grow old. The poor who bother us, interrupting our productive, healthy, happy lives by asking for help.

$34. A minuscule grain transferred across the fulcrum of economic disparity. A sick sad reminder of that day in the near future when the the situation will recur, when that $34 won't be available and the ambulance may or may not arrive in time. A reminder that the status quo just isn't enough when it comes to health care in this country.

Knock. knock.knock.

Frankl, Avatar, and most of all, Star Trek

Sorry folks, but I'm not literate, eloquent or creative enough to have drawn all of the above listed themes together. Fortunately someone else is. Areophany of Martian Utopia Cafe has written (yet another) truly excellent post. So good that I think I'll have to go back and read it again very soon. It is, in part, a reflection on finding meaning in an all too often cruel and ridiculous world, and in part an homage to the Star Trek novels, in the form of a series of well crafted mini-reviews. I've never read any of the Star Trek novels, but now that I know where to start, I think I might just have to.