The novelette, "Trade Warriors" by F. Alexander Brejcha, in the October 1998 issue of Analog. Is the sort of story I subscribe to Analog for, interesting ideas, not just in science and technology, but also in thought. This story I highly recommend to my readers.
Told in a combination of first person present and flashback, this is the story of how Marie Dupree subverted a culture and made a fortune doing it. Dupree is the first and only human allowed to enter the Trade Academy on Korth. The Kroth will only trade with graduates of their Academy and unless Marie can graduate, Earth will not be allowed to trade with the aliens...and the aliens have some expertise the humans really, *really* want. A completely male dominated society, the femmes movement on Eartth insisted that it be a human female who entered their training program. True to the name of the story, and the nature of the Korthans, their trade academy is run as a cross between "the best of a Marine boot camp and Harvard Business School." For any human to succeed would be very hard, for a human female even harder. Although it is only speculation on my part, I think it is clear there was also a strong segment of Korthan society that wanted the human alien to fail, although it was a minority...at first. Of course, Marie does not fail...hooray for humans, and in keeping with the times in which it was written, hooray for feminism.
I enjoyed the alien-ness of the Korthans as portrayed in this tale, both in shape and cultural mindset. Both were just enough outside human norms to be interesting, but close enough to be understandable...and to provide insights into the human condition. Shorter than humans, but more massive, the carnivorous Korthans were aggressive to the extreme in everything they did. I pictured them as a cross between wolves with their social pack structure and bears. One purpose of the Academy was to teach the hyper-aggressive Korthans how to control themselves physically while only tempering their aggression and directing it toward the war of business rather than the business of war. Dupree has to survive physical challenges...ritual fights...that are supposed to stop short of serious injury, but don't always. Although only one is detailed it is clear by the end of the story she has fought many, and by winning her share earned the respect of many fellow Cadets.
Interesting point number one...the Korthans are lower in technology than the humans, generally, so what is it they have that the humans want so badly? Humans have developed a "Jump Gate" technology that allows us to travel to various star systems, however, the radiation produced by the Gates limits their use badly...more than four times and a human dies. The Korthans, lower in technology in many areas, just happen to be very advanced medically...especially in the treatment of radiation sickness. The powers that be on Earth are sure than, working with the Korthans, the problems of "Gate Sickness" can be solved. New technology, cooperation between species, hopeful progress...just my cup of tea!
Interesting point number two...one of requirements for graduation at the Trade Academy is for the Cadet to start a business during their time there. Given only a small fixed amount of capital to start with, they are expected to cover all of their expenses and earn a healthy profit by the time they are ready to graduate. Marie, knowing little about Korth, would seem to be at a disadvantage, but she brings with her a weapon of war...business war, that is...unknown to the Korthans. Multi-level marketing! Yes, my friends, Mary Kay rules!
Given the male dominated society on Korth, coupled with rising wealth and education, the female Korthans are primed and ready to do more than stay pregnent and barefoot in the kitchen. Marie's business gives them their opportunity. She pioneers the concept of females selling jewelry, clothing and cosmetics to other females...and sitting at the top of the pyramid of the first multi-level marketing scheme she rakes in huge profits. The success of Marie's pyramid begins to upset and unsettle the "powers that be" on Korth and they handle her like the Korthans do...they buy her out. She recieves her diploma early, with honors no less, and a very large payout. The Korth leaders will, of course, shut her business down, but as she says to the human sent to retrieve her, "once Pandora opened the box there was no putting anything back inside." Clearly, she has started a revolution and is walking away rich.
The surprising reveal at the end of the story was that she had made an under the table deal with the human feminist movement leader to do just what she did. Marie went in as an agent provocateur, and will reap even bigger rewards upon returning to Earth. To be honest, this wasn't as big a surprise to me as the author probably intended. I suspected something of the sort was going on, just not the connection to the feminist movement. I suspected the Earth Authority, itself, had given her this assignment...but was that because of my 2010 post-feminist mindset?
Interesting point three...1998 was only 12 years ago. Did 1998 Americans, the primary readership of Analog, find it so unusual for a female to be (a) the protaginist in a tale such as this?; (b) to be a savvy and creative business woman; (c) to think that a hundred years hence humanity would still need a femme movement; or that women could, not just compete, but excel in the war of business...or even the business of war? I can see where the female angle of this story would be radical, even today, in some parts of the world...you are wise enough to know where I mean...but in the "West" do we blink twice at a female CEO? Does the "glass ceiling" even still exist? Perhaps, it does, but surely it is shattering and falling away.
You know, I think we can thank Mary Kay, Tupperware and Amway for some of the changes in our view of women in business. Getting a "foot in the door", lead to a "place at the table", and that lead to where we are now. The female CEO's, Senators, and Secretaries of State, stand on the shoulders of their mothers and grandmothers...and I bet more of them fought their revolution, not on the streets but in living rooms and kitchens selling to other mothers, grandmothers and their daughters.
I really enjoyed this story and would love to read more about the humans and the Korthans...and about Marie Dupree.
As an aside, I have discovered that this was one of the last stories that Mr. Brejcha had published in Analog. He has written many stories since, but either he left Analog or it left him behind...a shame either way.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
O'Carolan's Revenge
"O'Carolan's Revenge" was Rick Cook's short story in the October 1998 issue of Analog. This story was much more to my liking than the previous one I read. A "slice of life" time travel story, bittersweet, but satisfying.
The Irish harper, O'Carolan, is an old blind man living at the end of the "great houses" of Ireland. He knows his time on earth is short. He also knows that soon there won't be any hosts to give him shelter and board in exchange for his music, and with the loss of patrons he fears his music will die with himself.
He is approached by a man...a hard horse trader O'Carolan calls him by the name of Johnny Adams...and a woman...Mauve Fitzpatrick...who offer him hospitality for 3 days and nights. For 3 days and nights he plays for his strange hosts and forms a friendship with the woman and fellow harper, Mauve. At the end of the contract, the man pays O'Carolan with a bag of gold and a fine blue cloak, insisting that the harper sign his name to a paper as proof that it was he who played here. Before O'Carolan can sign Mauve rushes in and tells the Irish harper that they are "from the future" where his music is still admired. The songs have been recorded and will be sold to make Johnny rich.
O'Carolan realizes that Johnny is, in his mind, cheating him, but he also realizes that yes his music has lived on far into the future after all! So, the harper signs the contract, but exacts a toll. As Johnny and Mauve sit and listen, without their recording equipment, he plays them a composition that is the most beautiful thing he has every done. He then informs Johnny that he will never play that song again, so it will be lost to him for all time..that is his revenge.
After Johnny leaves frustrated, O'Carolan tells Mauve that she can play that song, that she must take it with her and make it her own. With that he bids his companions goodbye and with his lead boy leaves the ruined castle for the Roscommon Fair three days hence.
This story touches some points that interested me. First, what would be profitable from time-travel is bringing back lost art, music, and performances by long dead artists. Is that fair to the artists of the past? Perhaps, perhaps not. In many, perhaps most, cases an artist isn't "in it" for the money or the fame, but for the art itself and knowing that their art will live on after themselves might be a greater reward than any amount of gold. Suddenly, I am reminded of not one, not two, but many writers, artists, poets and composers who died by their own hand firmly convinced that they were failures...I'm sure you can think of a few. If they could only have seen into the future where their work is enjoyed, even revered, would they have stayed their hand?
Cook's story telling in this story was very good. He set the scene, drew me into his protagonist, and made me care for him. To be honest, I would greatly enjoy reading more about O'Carolan's life, no need for time-travel. I wonder if Rick Cook has gone on to great things? I wonder if he has written more tales of the Harper O'Carolan? I hope he has!
The Irish harper, O'Carolan, is an old blind man living at the end of the "great houses" of Ireland. He knows his time on earth is short. He also knows that soon there won't be any hosts to give him shelter and board in exchange for his music, and with the loss of patrons he fears his music will die with himself.
He is approached by a man...a hard horse trader O'Carolan calls him by the name of Johnny Adams...and a woman...Mauve Fitzpatrick...who offer him hospitality for 3 days and nights. For 3 days and nights he plays for his strange hosts and forms a friendship with the woman and fellow harper, Mauve. At the end of the contract, the man pays O'Carolan with a bag of gold and a fine blue cloak, insisting that the harper sign his name to a paper as proof that it was he who played here. Before O'Carolan can sign Mauve rushes in and tells the Irish harper that they are "from the future" where his music is still admired. The songs have been recorded and will be sold to make Johnny rich.
O'Carolan realizes that Johnny is, in his mind, cheating him, but he also realizes that yes his music has lived on far into the future after all! So, the harper signs the contract, but exacts a toll. As Johnny and Mauve sit and listen, without their recording equipment, he plays them a composition that is the most beautiful thing he has every done. He then informs Johnny that he will never play that song again, so it will be lost to him for all time..that is his revenge.
After Johnny leaves frustrated, O'Carolan tells Mauve that she can play that song, that she must take it with her and make it her own. With that he bids his companions goodbye and with his lead boy leaves the ruined castle for the Roscommon Fair three days hence.
This story touches some points that interested me. First, what would be profitable from time-travel is bringing back lost art, music, and performances by long dead artists. Is that fair to the artists of the past? Perhaps, perhaps not. In many, perhaps most, cases an artist isn't "in it" for the money or the fame, but for the art itself and knowing that their art will live on after themselves might be a greater reward than any amount of gold. Suddenly, I am reminded of not one, not two, but many writers, artists, poets and composers who died by their own hand firmly convinced that they were failures...I'm sure you can think of a few. If they could only have seen into the future where their work is enjoyed, even revered, would they have stayed their hand?
Cook's story telling in this story was very good. He set the scene, drew me into his protagonist, and made me care for him. To be honest, I would greatly enjoy reading more about O'Carolan's life, no need for time-travel. I wonder if Rick Cook has gone on to great things? I wonder if he has written more tales of the Harper O'Carolan? I hope he has!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Artifacts by Jerry Oltion
Artifacts was published in the October 1998 issue of Analog. I've read other stories by Mr. Oltion in the past and enjoyed them and this one was well-written and entertaining as well...but I didn't really enjoy it.
The premise is that a few hundred years from now mankind has discovered many, many, hundreds of "artifacts" floating in and around the Solar System. Artifacts left by many different alien species that expanded and contracted and basically killed each other and themselves off over the billions of years before "now." Again with the Fermi Paradox...they were out there, but killed themselves off, and that's why we don't hear from them now.
The story's plot involves a spacer flying a "bomb" ship out to a recently discovered Artifact that is being explored and exploited. Yes, humanity is scavenging technology from these Artifacts, some of them very dangerous and some of the technology equally dangerous. Brian's, the protagonist, ship is ferrying supplies and more scientists out to the "site." Upon arriving the scientists already there act a bit strangely. Their leader shows Brian a "device" that gives him a very vivid virtual reality experience...a disturbing one, but one more strange than sinister.
Later Brian goes off to explore on his own and finds an anpitheater the aliens once used. He experiences another "vision", a flash of a sacrifice. A human sacrifice...and the the scientists arrive holding two of Brian's crew prisioner and he knows they have been "infected" by the technology here and are going to sacrifice his crewmates.
A short fight ends with him running back to the ship where he eventually orders its computer to "launch" even though he know it will kill everyone aboard the ship and the "Artifact"...innocent as well as the guilty, infected as well as the uninfected.
Although Oltion doesn't come right out and write it, it is clearly implied that all religion is an alien infection that leads only to death and destruction. So, fearing he, himself, has been been infected he must kill himself rather than risk a religious idea from making it back to earth. Sacrificing himself...how appropriate.
Science Fiction has been called the fiction of ideas. This story had several interesting ideas, but frankly Oltion lost me by painting religion, any and all religions, as a wholely bad idea.
I am many years behind reading Analog, I remember it as the home for high technology, filled strong men and women and an proponent of "progress." The stories were often very pulpy, but almost always fun. Here's hoping I find some of those stories as I try to read these magazines.
The premise is that a few hundred years from now mankind has discovered many, many, hundreds of "artifacts" floating in and around the Solar System. Artifacts left by many different alien species that expanded and contracted and basically killed each other and themselves off over the billions of years before "now." Again with the Fermi Paradox...they were out there, but killed themselves off, and that's why we don't hear from them now.
The story's plot involves a spacer flying a "bomb" ship out to a recently discovered Artifact that is being explored and exploited. Yes, humanity is scavenging technology from these Artifacts, some of them very dangerous and some of the technology equally dangerous. Brian's, the protagonist, ship is ferrying supplies and more scientists out to the "site." Upon arriving the scientists already there act a bit strangely. Their leader shows Brian a "device" that gives him a very vivid virtual reality experience...a disturbing one, but one more strange than sinister.
Later Brian goes off to explore on his own and finds an anpitheater the aliens once used. He experiences another "vision", a flash of a sacrifice. A human sacrifice...and the the scientists arrive holding two of Brian's crew prisioner and he knows they have been "infected" by the technology here and are going to sacrifice his crewmates.
A short fight ends with him running back to the ship where he eventually orders its computer to "launch" even though he know it will kill everyone aboard the ship and the "Artifact"...innocent as well as the guilty, infected as well as the uninfected.
Although Oltion doesn't come right out and write it, it is clearly implied that all religion is an alien infection that leads only to death and destruction. So, fearing he, himself, has been been infected he must kill himself rather than risk a religious idea from making it back to earth. Sacrificing himself...how appropriate.
Science Fiction has been called the fiction of ideas. This story had several interesting ideas, but frankly Oltion lost me by painting religion, any and all religions, as a wholely bad idea.
I am many years behind reading Analog, I remember it as the home for high technology, filled strong men and women and an proponent of "progress." The stories were often very pulpy, but almost always fun. Here's hoping I find some of those stories as I try to read these magazines.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Fermi Plague
I've been a subscriber to Analog Science Fiction and Fact for 40+ years, however, I've fallen almost a dozen years behind in my reading. Yes, I know, I know. :)
In any case, I am going to post comments about stories and articles I read starting with this one... "The Fermi Plague", an Editorial by Stanley Schmidt in the October 1998 issue of Analog.
Dr. Schmidt's title, of course, refers to the big question..."Where is everybody and why haven't they said 'hello?'" That question remains unanswered 11 years later, although we have discovered many, many, planets in the meantime. This question, though, isn't really the thrust of the editorial, and in light of what has happened since it was published, it takes on an even more scary taint.
What Dr. Schmidt asks, is can a techonological civilization...and as we are the only one we know of...can we survive long enough to become the sort of civilization that can contact other civilizations?
Stanley adds "the plague" as a possible answer to Fermi's Paradox. A Technological Civilization may develop the ability to kill itself with a plague.
Dr. Schmidt's example plague was the "Anthrax scare" of the late 90's. That was a phony scare at the time, but it was possible, even then, for a government, even a poor one, to "weaponize" a viral or bacteriological strain and deliver it against population in general. It is even more possible today!
It isn't just governments that could develop and spread such a plague, any well financed NGO...terrorist group...could pull it off. So could any well-heeled individual nutjob! Scary, huh?
After 9/11, the Mumbai Massacre, and all of the other attacks of the last decade it is clear that there are groups in the world willing to indiscriminately kill innocent people and suicide while doing it. All that has been wanting has been the agent of destruction. Crashing airplanes is awful, massacring people in a hotel, on trains, in nightclubs is awful, planting bombs here and there takes out buildings and dozens, hundreds, of people is awful, but non of them would compare to setting off an atomic bomb in downtown London, Paris, New York or Tokyo!
Atomic bombs can be built, and we know who might be building them. Are all of the atomic bombs from the former USSR accounted for? Are we sure? Even short of a bomb, just a conventional bomb...and we know they can build them...could disperse a cloud of radioactive death just from the waste material from power plants. As bad as an A-bomb or a "dirty" bomb would be it wouldn't be a global event...a plague could be.
There are plenty of natural diseases out there that could lay millions low...HINI anyone? And then there are the un-natural ones. There is no evidence that anyone has used our knowledge of DNA and genetics to create killer diseases...yet...but there is no evidence that it hasn't been done in one, or more, government library. If it hasn't been done yet, do you want to bet...can we afford to bet...that it won't be done?
Mankind on Earth is walking on a tightwire. We have been up there for years and will be up there for many, many, more...unless we fall off and then Dr. Schmidt will have been correct about how one Technological Civilization disappeared.
So, what do we do about it? Dr. Schmidt's suggested solution was for all of mankind to become rational, kind-hearted, and stop murdering each other no matter how good a reason we might think we have...in short, the end of fanaticism and the ascendancy of reason. You tell me, in the past 12 years has fanaticism receded or advanced? Sad and scary.
In any case, I am going to post comments about stories and articles I read starting with this one... "The Fermi Plague", an Editorial by Stanley Schmidt in the October 1998 issue of Analog.
Dr. Schmidt's title, of course, refers to the big question..."Where is everybody and why haven't they said 'hello?'" That question remains unanswered 11 years later, although we have discovered many, many, planets in the meantime. This question, though, isn't really the thrust of the editorial, and in light of what has happened since it was published, it takes on an even more scary taint.
What Dr. Schmidt asks, is can a techonological civilization...and as we are the only one we know of...can we survive long enough to become the sort of civilization that can contact other civilizations?
Stanley adds "the plague" as a possible answer to Fermi's Paradox. A Technological Civilization may develop the ability to kill itself with a plague.
Dr. Schmidt's example plague was the "Anthrax scare" of the late 90's. That was a phony scare at the time, but it was possible, even then, for a government, even a poor one, to "weaponize" a viral or bacteriological strain and deliver it against population in general. It is even more possible today!
It isn't just governments that could develop and spread such a plague, any well financed NGO...terrorist group...could pull it off. So could any well-heeled individual nutjob! Scary, huh?
After 9/11, the Mumbai Massacre, and all of the other attacks of the last decade it is clear that there are groups in the world willing to indiscriminately kill innocent people and suicide while doing it. All that has been wanting has been the agent of destruction. Crashing airplanes is awful, massacring people in a hotel, on trains, in nightclubs is awful, planting bombs here and there takes out buildings and dozens, hundreds, of people is awful, but non of them would compare to setting off an atomic bomb in downtown London, Paris, New York or Tokyo!
Atomic bombs can be built, and we know who might be building them. Are all of the atomic bombs from the former USSR accounted for? Are we sure? Even short of a bomb, just a conventional bomb...and we know they can build them...could disperse a cloud of radioactive death just from the waste material from power plants. As bad as an A-bomb or a "dirty" bomb would be it wouldn't be a global event...a plague could be.
There are plenty of natural diseases out there that could lay millions low...HINI anyone? And then there are the un-natural ones. There is no evidence that anyone has used our knowledge of DNA and genetics to create killer diseases...yet...but there is no evidence that it hasn't been done in one, or more, government library. If it hasn't been done yet, do you want to bet...can we afford to bet...that it won't be done?
Mankind on Earth is walking on a tightwire. We have been up there for years and will be up there for many, many, more...unless we fall off and then Dr. Schmidt will have been correct about how one Technological Civilization disappeared.
So, what do we do about it? Dr. Schmidt's suggested solution was for all of mankind to become rational, kind-hearted, and stop murdering each other no matter how good a reason we might think we have...in short, the end of fanaticism and the ascendancy of reason. You tell me, in the past 12 years has fanaticism receded or advanced? Sad and scary.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Welcome...
...to the Sword & Blaster Inn, where there will always be a table open for you!
I will be talking about pulp fantasy and classic science fiction here, as well as role playing games that allow us to "live" in those sort of fantasies. I hope to all who come by the Inn will find it entertaining and interesting.
Comments are, usually, welcome.
I will be talking about pulp fantasy and classic science fiction here, as well as role playing games that allow us to "live" in those sort of fantasies. I hope to all who come by the Inn will find it entertaining and interesting.
Comments are, usually, welcome.
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