Paper Idea

Hey, has anyone ever read Philip K. Dick's works?

Steampunk Swag

In relation to our discussion about the steampunk subgenre last week, here are some quite beautiful and intricate homemade steampunk items. http://www.datamancer.net/vonslattkeyboard/vonslattkeyboard.htm

Surrogates

Did anyone else see Surrogates this week? I saw it on Friday. I thought it was really good, and left me thinking about how something like that would affect the world. For those who haven't seen it, the surrogates are robots that you can control with your thoughts. The owner sits at home hooked up to a machine and thinks about what he wants to do, and the robot does it.

I can see how useful that technology would be. If you sent them into war instead of real people, no soldier would ever die. People with disabilities would have a chance to live a normal life. It would take the danger out of everything. But would it be as fun? It's not really living if all you're doing is sitting in a chair thinking about it. Would societies still advance if everyone was using a robot to live for them?

Do we need posts this week?

I totally forgot about the blog until basically about now because this week has been pretty crazy. In any case, I came to do my posts and found that no one else has made a new post either. So I was just wondering if we need posts this week even though we haven't read anything?

Androids, Cyborgs, and Robots

After reading "Hellfire at Twilight", I got curious as to the difference between the definition of a cyborg and an android. So a cyborg, according to wikipedia, is "an organism with both artificial and natural parts" and an android is a robot that's suppose to look and act like a human.

I was wondering if the lines between these categories could ever become a bit blurry. Can the robot in "Tideline" be considered an android because of her ability to express human-like emotions even though she doesn't look like a human? Or is she just a robot with empathetic abilities? Does any combination of amounts of human or artificial parts make one a cyborg? Can a cyborg be a robot that has a human part (like the heart or brain or something) integrated into its circuitry?

Anyone have any ideas because robotics is not my specialty.

Narrative style in "The Skysailor's Tale"

My favourite aspect of this particular piece is that it is a personal story that the narrator is passing along to his son. Yes, the narrator goes on quite a fantastic voyage and sees wondrous sights, but the primary theme of the story is not the journey, but the relationship between father and son.

Hellfire at Twilight

I will leave most of this for class. However, it is a story of a time traveling business that creates cyborgs from lost/abandoned children to research, find, and conserve ancient pieces of literature.

It was an ok story, but lacked a lot of "action" so for its length was somewhat boring, but still it was not a bad story over all.

However, It also was, to some degree, confusing for me, and I would dare say confusing for a lot of others as I did not see mention of it at all on the blog (Edit: at the time of this writing, it appears I should have refreshed the page before posting).

I can see some of the issues at hand, such as cyborgs who know history through experience vs people who think they know history. And other such issues, but they were not very interesting issues in my opinion. I guess this story just isn't my thing.

In any case, this personally was not my favorite story this week. But it did appear to be more of a full story than some others we have read.

Time out of Joint

It seems like in a lot of the stories we've read, the main character has been placed in a position from which they experience time much differently than how we do in our everyday lives. I'm not necessarily talking about time travel either. For example:

In Hellfire the cyborgs assume a very detached view of history. They are so far ahead of many of the times they are investigated, everything and everyone assumes a role as some sort of primary or secondary document for investigation. It begs the question, can anyone be anything more than a "cyborg" who merely records and processes information when viewing a point in time that exists beyond their own? At what point in history does someone else's life become just "history", and our capacity to truly empathize with them become deficient?

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, and Against the Current offered what I found to more proscriptive than descriptive views of time. As in, how should we move on in the face of an uncertain future, or past? How should we view time in a way that we can move on past the mistakes we've made, and not become too attached to the successes we've enjoyed?

Finally, other stories like the Sledge-maker's Daughter gave me a reverse of the Hellfire story in terms of how it made me look a time. Instead of becoming a detached observer, it made me wonder to what extent are we mythicizing and aggrandizing a past or future that we are only vaguely familiar with. To what extent is this okay, and at what point do we need to take a step back and observe with a fresh outlook the historical evidence present to us.

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, I'm just putting this out in the ether. Peace.

Very Strange Dream

Here's a dream I had that can only have come from science fiction.

One dream was about New Year's day, and how the world seemed to be coming to an end. It was apparent that this happened every year. There were thick clouds on teh ground obscuring views to the right and left and directly overhead. If you could look out ahead, and sort of 'under' the clouds above you, you could see a fast aurora borealis that looked like liquid tubes of flourescent xenon gas whipping back and forth and around and through one another. Then it was dark and clear and the sky passed overhead as though the earth were spinning very quickly. Travelling on the inside surface of the sky were bright, colorful, teaming shapes that transformed into alien ships (only once or twice in a form recognizablle to humans, i just 'knew' that they were alien ships or maybe the aliens were the ships). Sometimes there were ships and sometimes just exclusively aesthetic displays of colour and energy: red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and some in-between color mixes. The way the figures were passing overhead was as if they were telling a story of their civilization; the displays were not aliens, but a sort of light show that aliens sent to appear in our sky for each new year to tell us that they existed. Different civilizations told different stories. Apparently, this has always happened, and I had just discovered how to see it. At the end (I don't remember the specific ending) there was more light from more directions than that for which the sun could be responsible, and the air seemed to be saturated beyond capacity with light.

This is similar to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, as well as Dave Bowman's experience in 'Beyond the Infinite' more so in the book (2001: A Space Odyssey) rather than the movie.

Any ideas about this or reactions to it?

Hellfire

Hellfire at twighlight was a very fun and captivating story. It was my favorite of this book. It had an interesting mix of futuristic cyborgs, 18th century england, and roman mythology. With an interesting mix of sexual tension maybe? That was kind of an interesting touch but i guess you have to have that if you are talking about roman mythology. I kind of wish they had a little bit more cyborg in the story than they did. It was a fun asect of the story and I wish they had more since this is a true scify. I think the premise of the story was more scify than the actual aspects in it. Very enjoyable.

"Of Love and Other Monsters"

I loved this story. I enjoyed seeing a world through a protagonist's eyes who, instead of being attracted to physical beauty, is attracted to a person's mind, thoughts, and intelligence. And while that does seem ideal, I am not sure I would prefer it that way. I wouldn't want to know what everyone was thinking at all times because the truth really can hurt. It would be very difficult to maintain a relationship.

The story also reminded me of HBO's True Blood. Sookie Stackhouse, a telepath, has a difficult time being in crowds because she can hear each individual thought. I can imagine how hard it would be to find silence and solitude living in a world like that.

However, there was one thing I would have liked further explained (or maybe I just missed it?), and that was the fact that some humans were "blanks." What makes their brainwaves so different? Maybe they are a different species of people altogether?

Live Glocally

Here is a side project that Bruce Sterling was a part of called The Viridian Design Movement. This movement was about creating a more green approach to futuristic design. This side project, which he worked on from about 1999 to 2008, looks very design oriented and probably one of his inspirations for Borislav's fabrikator in Kiosk.

"The Skysailor's Tale"

I had the final voyage of this unfortunate dirigible running through my mind pretty much the entire time I was reading "The Skysailor's Tale." The Hindenburg Disaster

Also, I was reminded of probably the most epic use of helium known to man: Joe Kittinger's magnificent leap of faith: 22 up, 22 down

I found an interview with Vandana Singh, author of "Of Love and Other Monsters". She doesn't talk about that story specifically, but she talks about what influences how and what she writes.

The interview is here: http://www.ideomancer.com/main/vol6issue4/interview/one.html.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Because I'm slightly bored with commenting on the stories we're reading (and because I still have to finish reading them for tomorrow), I wanted to start a random, though still related, topic to discus:

If there was an option, should we, people of earth, encourage contact with an (intelligent) alien races?

I imagine that trying to communicate with another race would be extremely difficult anyway. Also, a human would probably find it really easy to offend an alien (just think of all the "weird" customs we have on earth, most of which differ greatly for different cultures) without meaning to. One scifi show (Babylon 5) involved a war between humans and another race that was all started because of a misunderstanding. An alien race approached earth with their spaceship's gunports open., which to them was a sign of respect, but was considered a sign of attack to the humans who then fired first. Earth was almost wiped out by the alien race.

On the other hand, talking to another race has endless possibilities for scientific advances. Not to mention the implications of finding intelligent life (religious ramifications being just one thing that comes to mind). Also, people are just plain curious. It would be facinating to compare and contract the two races from completely different part of space.



Personally, I think it'd be cool but that might not be the smartest choice.

The Skysailor's Tale

I enjoyed reading this story. It is about a man passing on his life lessons to his son. He begins talking about going to his father's grave and then starts talking about an airship called the Empire that he worked on. We are taken from the wharfs of Philadelphia, to an airship, to the Aztec empire in Mexico. This story is an alternate-history story, taking place after the Revolutionary War.

The narrator tells the story in pieces, skipping between the timeline of his life. It was interesting to be aboard a British airship in one paragraph and the next be back at home with narrator, telling his son to keep the fire burning. The story being told boils down to one thing: love. It is a love story told in the most roundabout way.

Happy Birthday HG Wells

Today is HG Well's birthday. Apparently the alien themes that google has had for the past few weeks are to pay respects to Wells. Google Doodle Mystery Solved: Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells

Of Love and Other Monsters

It seems kind of an odd title considering the dearth of monsters--unless you count the humans who torched the aliens upon landing or the one who got away and was killing humans. Kind of reminded me of X-Files where the Syndicate, or rebel aliens, torched the "raliens" upon landing a part of an interstellar war. But overall, this is my favorite story for this week because of the new origins given to humans and the possibility that aliens could be among us but they blend in so well we can't tell--or perhaps we ourselves are part alien but don't realize it.

Mamet and Chabon

This Stuart Klawans essay on writer-director David Mamet's 1991 movie Homicide -- about a dogged Jewish police detective investigating a murder that leads to a Jewish secret society -- of course made me think of The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and made me wonder whether Michael Chabon has seen it.

2012 Trailer

The new movie about the end of the world. Hopefully we have a little more time on Earth.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1912472089/

The Mists of Time

I'm glad I picked this story based on it's name because it did not dissapoint me. It's basically about a man tracing his ancestral roots back to a British Navy captain responsible for battling slavetraders. But the catch is that he (and a female camerawoman) are watching the event that made his ancestor famous via a time machine for the sake of capturing the truth of the event for historians of the future to see.

I'm amazed to see a story combining 2 of my favorite things: naval combat and time travel. The clash between the slavers and the Navy was so epic that it was easy for me to forget this was a sci-fi short story in the first place. Now that I think about it, this story goes a step further than Against the Current did in terms of 'fulfilling time travel fantasies' for me. I can honestly say that i would sign up to be a Chrononaut without much hesitation.

Stray

Stray is a story about an immortal man named Ivanthat starts a new life with a woman named Muriel. While trying to live his new life he is haunted by flashbacks from his old life where he took advantage of people and eventually slauhtered them. He constantly makes refrences to his abilities that he is seeming to lose. He takes to the form of a black man in his new society and only his wife Muriel knows what he truly is. One day he encounters a white girl praying, so he takes the form of a white man to find out what she is praying about. He learns that she is a soon to be orphan. As he is talking to her his friend walks up and he is forces to go back to his black form. When he does this the girl freaks out and Ivan offers to take her in. When he brings her home, Muriel freaks out saying that people will not accept this. Eventually Ivan tells the girl she must go home and the story ends with her standing abandoned by god.

A.I.

I found this relevant to some of our AI encounters...

http://xkcd.com/632/

Time Travel

We've read two stories about time travel so far; here is a look by the folks at How Stuff Works on the subject.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/time-travel.htm

9

It appears that we are running into apocalyptic SF stories everywhere lately. I read a review about the new Tim Burton animated movie 9, now in theaters, and it looks pretty interesting. It already has 7.3 out of 10 stars on IMDB. Has anyone had a chance to go see this movie yet?

Roxie: A true story?

The whole story is about a potential looming doom which we find ourselves in the midst of in real life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

99942 Apophis (pronounced /əˈpɒfɪs/, previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a small probability (up to 2.7%) that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However, a possibility remains that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about 600 meters across, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036. This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006. It broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered.[5]

Additional observations of the trajectory of Apophis revealed the keyhole would likely be missed and on August 5, 2006 Apophis was lowered to a Level 0 on the Torino Scale. As of April 16, 2008, the impact probability for April 13, 2036, is calculated as 1 in 45,000.

The close approach in 2029 will substantially alter the object's orbit, making predictions uncertain without more data.

...

NASA initially estimated the energy that Apophis would have released if it struck Earth as the equivalent of 1,480 megatons of TNT. A later, more refined NASA estimate was 880 megatons.[2] The impacts which created the Barringer Crater or caused the Tunguska event are estimated to be in the 3–10 megaton range[16] The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons.

Explanation of those events:
Krakatoa was a gigantic volcanic eruption, The barringer crater is a 1500m wide crater caused by a 50m rock 50000 years ago. It was at its max, 148 times weaker in energy and the rock is 7 times smaller. So, in the case that size is linear to crater size (which I doubt and expect it to be more likely exponential of some sort) we are talking about a crater 7 times bigger, or 10500m wide which is about 35000 ft, or basically 7 miles wide. Sounds like a party to me.

We see how in this story, how in a short 5 year period or so, the odds went from 1:6000 to 1:9. This is a factor of about (oh this is good, just calculated it and) 666 times greater likelihood. If we apply that to today's REAL chance. 1:45000 goes to 1:67. Would you risk ~10 million lives from initial impact + however many more from the winter that follows on a 1 in 67 chance? Thats a 1.49% chance. Sure, you may say thats low, but is it low enough to risk these kinds of things?

And the most painful thing is that you know an object 1500 ft across is hurdling towards earth and we have no idea if it will make impact until it passes under our satellites in 2029 and we see how our gravity changes it.

But as far as the story itself goes, I thought this story brilliant and creative with serious modern day links and problems. How did it end? Who knows, it doesnt say. It ends before the asteroid hit or misses. Which I personally was dissatisfied with.

"Laws of Survival"

"Laws of Survival" is probably my favorite story for this week, although it may be tied with "Roxie." I couldn't help but think of what would happen if I were put in that position, having to train dogs or be killed. I have had dogs of all sorts since I was a child and haven't succeeded in getting any of them to obey me.

Does anyone know what the grubs were? What was their purpose?

I also find it very funny that advanced life forms came to earth, and the only thing they found worthwhile to take back with them were dogs.

And on a final note: I'm not sure how well I believe that the protagonist was able to "forget" or mentally block-out her past, even having a child! I understand that she might lose touch with humanity slightly, but that seemed a little far fetched. But I guess it may just be one of things you can't understand until you're in that position.

Interesting Star Wars video

So I'm sitting here, not feeling too well (hopefully just a cold, probably shouldn't be up this late as is), and in my stupor I stumble across this funny little clip on Collegehumor:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1920944
(Yes, I realize I didn't embed the link correctly. My bad :O)


It's a bunch of Stormtroopers looking back on the day that the Deathstar was destroyed. You'll probably find out what they're alluding to very soon upon watching this, if you haven't already. Anyways, I just thought it was a neat video in that it was using all of the sci-fi conventions of Star Wars as an allegory for an actual historical event.

This is something we haven't really touched on as much, how can one use sci-fi for humor? What sort of sci-fi tropes yield themselves as tools for satire, and what are some good examples?

Anyways, I'm off to bed, hopefully these nanomachines in my system will defeat whatever ails me.

Déjà vu

I was walking through the quad earlier today and I had a serious case of déjà vu. Obviously there is a glitch in the Matrix.

Second Set of Short Stories

So I didn't care for this set of short stories as much as I did the last set.

"Laws of Survival" was just weird. I still can't seem to grasp why aliens would travel so far and not be able to properly communicate with humans (or the dogs if that's who they wanted). It seemed completely unrealistic to me.

"Craters" was depressing,but it was interesting to see how technology can cause problems in the future rather than making solving them.

"Roxie" was kind of boring to me. It was very plausible, but I just didn't care that much for it.

"Stray" was cool but confused me a little. I still don't understand fully what Ivan was. Was he an alien, an advance human, a god ? I kind of assume alien, but I'm not sure if it actually says or even really implies that anywhere in the story.

I actually liked "The Mists of Time". It's cool to see future tech being used to visit the past. Plus, I loved the science references to things like Schrodinger's cat.

Favorite Story

What was everyone's favorite story this time? My favorite is "The Mists of Time". I enjoyed reading the different points-of-view of the event. It made the battle feel more real because there was more than one opinion of it. I also liked how it showed how subjective history is. Any 3 people can see the same event happen, and view it in 3 completely different ways.

I liked all of the main characters, except for Giva. She was annoying. But I'm pretty sure she was supposed to be irritating, because that's what Emory thought of her, and we only heard about her through his point-of-view.

Loosely Science Fiction

Another blogger suggested that Craters was "loosely science fiction." I think maybe this story was the wild card of getting into the years best science fiction. I felt that the story went no where. A sad tale of a future where a reporter is investigating the use of state required microchips in children to turn them into unwilling suicide bombs. I just felt like the story ended without accomplishing anything or going anywhere. It was like one of those "Lost" episodes somewhere in the third season that has nothing to do with the plot of the story and is just a random snapshot of life on a strange island. I appologize for such a strange analogies. I kind of feel like Dwight Schrute now. This story was just a small snapshot of the future the author created. I felt like it was a valid idea that needed just a little more meat to it.

Thoughts On Roxie

Though the idea of a major, devastating collision with a comet or asteroid is a real and disquieting possibility, I find a danger located right in our own proverbial back yard to be just as if not more fearsome: The Yellowstone Supervolcano.

Craters

Did anyone else get a chilling wind blow upon their necks as they read this story? It's scary in that it could be happening now and we have no idea it is. Yet at the same time, the heavy reliance on the current political/ideological situation makes this story seem less science-fiction oriented than the others.

Laws of Survival

This tale set in the future, pretty near in fact, after a suppsed World War III devastated the entire world and left people living in trash pits. Only a handful of cities remain, like Raleigh, and some army posts who do nothing to aid the people. Aliens descend, build domes that are mysterious and impervious. The narrator, Jill a vetern surviver, found out that the robot spheres in the dome wanted dogs in exchange for food. One day, Jill mouthed off too much and gets abducted into the dome to train the dogs--apparently, the reason the aliens came to Earth was to obtain canines who they viewed as the perfect, loyal symbiote to fuse with. Along the way, Jill remembered life before the war, her son, and embraced her humanity again--which she had shut off in order to endure--as she connected with the dogs she trained. When the army blew up a dome with nukes, the aliens leave and Jill goes along because there was nothing left for her on Earth.

I really liked this story because I liked how the narrator was such a tough survivor--how many people would have the balls to bargain for food with dogs?--even though she got mushy in the end and changed her 5th Law of Survival to "Take a chance--love everything." That seemed kind of a slip in character. I mean, sure she regained her ability to love the dogs, but was still willing to abandon Earth and any chance of finding her son again. Also, I loved the whole idea of a permanent partnership with a dog--partly because I'm such huge dog lover--but also because it highlighted the whole point of human existence: finding someone who will always be there for you. It was kind of ironic that aliens were also searching for the same thing and that it seemed to only exist on Earth.

Sea Change

Sea change is about two rich girls that get in trouble while cutting class. The school concludes that it is possible that they were not attending any of the classes they were getting credit for, so they had to re-take every class over the summer. The majority of the story focuses on a girl named Em. At summer school she learns just how fortunate she is while talking with her tutor who has to spend a very long time paying off debts from school. Em's friend Callie does not appreciate her luck, and instead makes fun of the tutor for her lack of financial success. This story did not seem to have too many elements of science fiction compared to the others I read, but I enjoyed it none the less.

Lighting Out

Lighting Out is a bizarre little story set in a future where humans have discovered how to download copies of their consciousnesses into computers, new bodies, or any other conceivable medium. In the narrative, these "partials" as they're called begin copying themselves and taking over the space station where the story primarily takes place.

While I did not care particularly for the story, It does raise several interesting philosophical questions.

For one, if we ever gain the technological abilities portrayed in Lighting Out, should the partials created have the same rights as naturally born humans? In the work, Constance alludes to philosophers (both natural human and partial) who have decided that partials should be "deleted" as soon as their functions have been served. However, I don't know that I could personally justify killing a living, thinking being, even if it is only a copy of another.

Furthermore, what if we can download and transfer our consciousnesses, but only to machines? Should these machines have rights as sentient beings, even though they're not alive?

Against The Current

Out of all of the short stories we read for this week, Against The Current caught my attention the most. Ever since I read this story, i've imagined what it would be like to go through that in my own hometown of Birmingham. I've lived in the same neighborhood all my life and would relish the chance to watch my life on rewind. After that, i'd like to see how the American Revolution played out, and from there just travel the world searching for the most interesting events of those days. Maybe go to Africa and see some old-school voodoo rituals or something after that, haha.

Anyone else got some sort of time travel fantasy or some period they would love to go back and see?

Against The Current

I really enjoyed reading this story, and it got me thinking about what I would do if I was in his situation.

Spoilers below!

How would you deal with traveling backwards in time uncontrollably? I don't think I would be as calm about it as he was, or as accepting. It would be so upsetting and depressing to know that you would never see your family and friends again, that nothing would ever be the same. I would be freaking out, not just going for a drive.

His reactions in the beginning and middle parts of the story were much more understandable. His confusion when things just don't seem right, and his fear when he realizes what is actually going on is exactly what I would feel. As is his hopelessness when he finally understands that he can't do anything to stop this backwards progression. It's the acceptance that bothers me, because I don't think I could ever just accept that I couldn't do anything. How do you just accept that your life is over, and nothing will ever be the same, and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it?

Last Contact: Science + Fiction

I know it isn't my story to discuss in class, but Last Contact struck me as being kind of weird. I personally really liked the story as it seemed like a plausible end. However, the thing that struck me as total BS in the story was what it takes part of its name from.

All of the alien contacts we just suddenly start receiving. What was it, like 5 a day? 5 a week? I forget. But irregardless, that is a huge number, even at 5 a week. 5 entire civilizations of unknown origin and location suddenly flood in every week. Other intelligent beings exist somewhere (it is mathematically impossible that they do not).

However, they are not close enough to send us a message because other creatures are most likely just as curious as we are and would have already tried finding other's around them. Because great discovery only comes from great curiosity. So an advanced civilization must also have an advanced curiosity.

And even if they sent a dying message as their sole message. This big rip seems to shred everything. So their message (which is comprised of energy aka electrons) would have been shredded in the process as well...

Some Thoughts I'm Currently Having

I am surprised at how much I am enjoying some of these stories. I just finished reading "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", and I was constantly trying to make everything make sense in my head. Time travel has always baffled me as I honestly don't see how it can work. I sort of got a sense of how it may occur in my philosophy class, but I personally just don't see it happening.

"Last Contact" was enjoyable but depressing. I am not a big fan of "end of the world" scenarios, but the story was told well and I took interest in the characters. I do like that the mother continued as if nothing was going to happen. I don't think that I would be that strong-willed.

"Tideline" was great. I often wonder if robotics could become so advanced that humans could interact with them on an emotional level. Of course, this raises many other questions, but I think I could see it happening as it did in the movie Bicentennial Man.

"The Sledge-Maker's Daughter" is the story I chose to discuss tomorrow, and I found it interesting. I'm not quite sure what to make of the story aspect of it, because to be honest, I'm not sure what I think of the plot or story. But I do like how the author created a world in which technology that is common to us (iron roads, flying devices, winking bridges, etc.) could be seen as mythical in a post-war or post-apocalyptic society. I guess the story just sort of left me hanging, wanting more.

I'll reserve some of my other comments for tomorrow's class. Otherwise, I may be barren of anything to say.

Last Contact

Here's an article from Newscientist that expands a little on the science behind Baxter's short story:

"Phantom menace' may rip up cosmos

• 19:00 05 March 2003 by Marcus Chown

Stand by for a nightmare end to the Universe - a runaway expansion so violent that galaxies, planets and even atomic nuclei are literally ripped apart. The scenario could play out as soon as 22 billion years from now.

"Until now we thought the Universe would either re-collapse to a big crunch or expand forever to a state of infinite dilution," says Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. "Now we've come up with a third possibility - the 'big rip'."

Whether the big rip happens or not depends on the nature of the mysterious dark energy that is pulling the Universe apart. We know that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up, but most physicists assume the acceleration is likely to stay constant or get weaker over time.

But Caldwell takes a different view. He thinks the dark energy causing the expansion could be growing more powerful. "We call it phantom energy," he says. "It's pretty weird stuff."

Shrink to a point

Under the influence of phantom energy, the runaway expansion of the Universe would become ever more violent, stretching more and more of the Universe further and further away until the light from the stars cannot reach us.

"Every observer sees the visible Universe around them shrink ever faster, eventually down to a point," says Caldwell. For all practical purposes, the Universe will have ended.

The existence of phantom energy has always been a possibility - even if a pretty unlikely one. But astronomers have tried and failed to rule it out. In particular, detailed measurements released in February of background radiation left over from the early Universe leave the door open.

Now, in a paper submitted to Physical Review, Caldwell and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have calculated how phantom energy would bring the Universe to an end. They found that as the phantom energy grows, its repulsive force becomes strong enough to rip all bound systems apart, starting with galaxy clusters and rapidly moving down the scale to galaxies, stars, planets and atoms.

Caldwell says he was surprised by the violence of the Universe's end - the received wisdom was that an ever-expanding Universe should end with a whimper. "In the last moments, even atomic nuclei will be ripped apart," he says.

Final millisecond

In the most extreme scenario, the big rip will happen 22 billion years from now, with the Milky Way destroyed 60 million years before the end and atoms torn to pieces in the final 10^-19 seconds (see graphic).

"If humanoids survive, they could observe all but the final millisecond," adds England's Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, who has also considered the possibility of phantom energy. "That's when the cosmic repulsion gets up to the tensile strength of our bodies and tears us apart. It's unlikely, but it can't be proved impossible."

Astronomers' best bet for working out which fate is in store for the Universe is the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP), a satellite proposed for launch later this decade. SNAP will make detailed measurements of thousands of supernovae, to pin down exactly how fast they are moving away from us and hopefully work out how dark energy is changing over time.

Most physicists probably will not be rooting for phantom energy. That is because if it exists, it will cause them all kinds of theoretical headaches. For example, Einstein's theory of gravity predicts the existence of minuscule wormholes - short cuts through space-time.

Normally they snap shut so fast we never notice them. But phantom energy's repulsive gravity would be powerful enough to hold wormholes open, and perhaps even push them wide enough apart for spacecraft to use them for faster-than-light travel. "This raises the spectre of time machines and all their paradoxes, which physicists find very uncomfortable," says Caldwell."

Ted Chiang Interview

After reading The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang I wanted to find out more about the author. Here is an interview with Chiang after writing this novella that won him a Hugo Award.

The Short Story > The Rest of Literature

"NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes -- some of which have a large sale." -Ambrose Bierce

Saving Tiamaat

I can see from some posts that some people are confused about this story. I am too, which is slightly concerning considering that I am supposed to lead discussion about it. I guess a good thing to ask would be, what threw you guys off in the story, what was particularly confusing about it?

I also guess that a good plot synopsis would be in order, so that we don't spend all our time in class trying to figure out what happened...
SPOILERS AHOY!!

Basically, what I understood from the story was that Debra and her friend Pele work as some sort of ambassadors for a NATO type organization based on some sort of space station called Speranza. Some time ago (I forget the exact date) the native planet of the Ki An was discovered through interspace travel that operates on some level that is faster than the speed of light.

Upon reaching this planet it was discovered that the An, although basically the same in genetic makeup to the Ki, were cannibalizing their brethren and generally just being very domineering meanies to them. In typical Western good guy fashion, the government extension for the Blue Planet (presumably Earth) supplied weapons to the Ki, helping them in leading an uprising against the An. This insurrection failed, resulting in a diaspora of the Ki, and a very big mess in general.

In present day, our good friend Debra and her friends at Speranza are holding a peace agreement between the Ki and the An to welcome them into their federation. Debra and her friend Pele are assigned to chaperon Baal, leader of the An, and Tiamaat, leader of the Ki, during their stay. Debra and Pele lead the two to some sort of sacred memorial ground, at which Baal kills and begins to eat a Ki, who was spouting some protest against the An.

This does not go over well, but does not really derail any of the proceedings, as it was generally assumed that Baal would kill and eat the Ki, as that's just what An do. Unnerved by Baal, Debra decides to go off and spend some time with Tiamaat. During their time together, Debra begins to get a better feel for Tiamaat's character, and of her ingrained suppression resulting from a lifelong struggle with the predatory An.

Debra meets back up with Baal, and decides to take him out to an asteroid on the outskirts of the Speranza space station. Here she lures Baal to some type of virtual reality space pod, in which she shows him his home planet, and promises him of its return to peace. Following this, Debra detaches Baal's pod from her own, leaving him stranded in space to die.

Debra wakes up some time later, and learns that her assassination of Baal went as planned. Most people in the Ki An delegation are pleased at Baal's demise, and any dissenters are two tied up with jumping through bureaucratic loop holes to make their voices really count. Tiamaat is appointed the sole leader of the new Ki An delegation, and during a ritualized cerremony, she cannibalizes a Ki. This illustrates to Debra that it was not necessarily the Ki An dichotomy the dictated their predator-prey relationship, but rather one of the powerful against the powerless. Debra returns to her room to relax at the behest of Pele, wondering if she has indeed done the right thing.

I hope that this is mostly correct, and is useful in clearing up the plot. As for any sort of deeper discussion, I guess we can save that for class.

Wednesday's short-story signups

Here's who's starting the conversation about what on Wednesday, assuming my notes are correct. You're also welcome to start the conversation here on the blog. Thanks, all.

MacLeod, "Lighting Out": Ian King

Jones, "Saving Tiamaat": Alan Lazer

Van Pelt, "Of Late I Dreamt of Venus": Drew Hoover

McCormack, "Sea Change": Petrina Kelly

Silverberg, "Against the Current": Jennifer Gunter

Chiang, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate": Kenneth Mahan

Baxter, "Last Contact": Matthew Bush

Reynolds, "The Sledge-Maker's Daughter": Eric McHargue

Bear, "Tideline": Ken Geller

Venus +

Wow, it's pretty rare to see a female protagonist in a sci-fi tale who manages to remain feminine but still manage to exert as dominant a presence as a male.

Favorite Short Story (so far)

I was just wondering what other people's favorite short story was and why.

I haven't read all of them yet, but my favorite so far is "Last Contact". I like how it used current scientific knowledge (like dark matter causing the expansion in the universe) and showed what I like is a realistic view of how people would react to the world ending. Also, it was a little easier to follow than some, like "Saving Tiamaat" and "Lighting Out".

Saving Tiamaat?

What did I just read? I have no idea?

This story just went waay over my head. I think that this kind of "super sf" is just a little out of my league. I think the author used too many strange names and future universes for me to keep it all straight. I felt like I had not the slightest concept of the plot until about half way through the story when I barely picked up on the plot. Until then I felt like I was just reading a random collection of strange words in unconnecting paragraphs. Maybe thats just my undeveloped palate for Science Fiction. I think I will be working on that for a while.

After I picked up on what was going on I found the plot to be fairly typical with strange things added in to make it look a-typical. Maybe I was just too frustrated by not understanding it to give an objective review of the piece. Overall I would, with all due respect, give it half a star out of 60.

Currently listening to Alexi Murdoch "All of My Days"

SIAP Coen Brothers to direct Yiddish Policemen's Union Movie

I thought that this is pretty cool. They should do an excellent job
Movie

Non-Human Science Fiction

This is a response to an earlier thread that became its own entity, so I'm posting it as a new post. The original idea was: are humans capable of writing non-human science fiction? That is, fiction from a non-human perspective (even if it is written in a human language) about non-human things. Because that's really hard to argue for or against, I'd like to raise the following questions: Do distinctly non-human ideas occur in science fiction? Can humans conceive of an alien life form that is not heavily painted by terrestrial experience?

Here's the post:

In order for a non-human story to be told, it would need to be told from a non-human perspective (the adventures of Arthur Dent and Kilgore Trout would sometimes qualify as being about non-humans, yet they are seen through a distinctly human lens).

Writing non-human science fiction (provided your definition includes fiction that humans write about non-anthropomorphic, non-humans) isn't such a difficult goal if you assume that all life in the universe originates the same way and in the same basic forms that terrestrial life originates. I don't think this is something wise to assume. How likely is it that the Earth variety of life is the most common way that life evolves in the universe? (I happen to believe in ETs) Therefore, writing about non-human life from the perspective of a non-human becomes especially difficult in the traditional SF realm of outer space.

Explaining things without using human terms and concepts is not something at which we are good because our language is so closely associated with the way our brains and civilization evolved. I would wager, then, that no science fiction exists that is not told from a mostly human perspective, whether or not it claims otherwise.

I'm interested, though, in who comes close to describing a form of life that is justified as plausible by the observable laws of the universe alone (rather than what humans perceive as life). I think that Arthur C Clarke does a pretty good job of writing about a non-human, non-anthropomorphic life form in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He never gives any substantial details about the extra-terrestrials, except that they 1) understand physics way better than we 2) are looking for other forms of life.

David Bowman is a sort of guest of the ETs, who have constructed a sort of trap to lure in forms of life and bring those critters closer for study. He sees part of their past and their progression into pure radiation in his journey. If you treat "life" as a peculiar circumstance for matter to find itself in, then it would make sense that eventually that circumstance finds a way to transcend its material into other things like electromagnetic radiation. I don't think this is an idea that is painted by human experience, rather it is a conclusion reached after studying the laws of the universe.

What does everyone else think? Are there other instances in which a distinctly non-human idea has been created in science fiction?

"Alternate History" in The Cambridge Companion

Earlier today, I e-mailed everyone a copy of the chapter I wrote on alternate history in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge University Press, 2003), to give some background on one of the genres that Chabon is working in.

I quote Harry Turtledove on the relationship between alternate history and science fiction:

Both seek to extrapolate logically a change in the world as we know it. Most forms of science fiction posit a change in the present or nearer future and imagine its effect on the more distant future. Alternate history, on the other hand, imagines a change in the more distant past and examines its consequences for the nearer past and the present. The technique is the same in both cases; the difference lies in where in time it is applied.

Some excerpts from my article:

An alternate history is not a history at all, but a work of fiction in which history as we know it is changed for dramatic and often ironic effect.

Often an alternate history dramatizes the moment of divergence from the historical record, as well as the consequences of that divergence. ...

Alternate histories don’t always dramatize their moments of divergence, however. Often the story or novel begins many years after that moment has occurred. The reader is immediately in a different world, so that a pleasure of the reading becomes the discovery not only of what will happen but also of what already happened, to make this ‘alternate world’ the way it is. ...

The one invariable rule of alternate history is that the difference between the fictional timeline and the real one must be obvious to the reader. An alternate history about, say, 19th-century Chinese immigration to California would be harder to write than an alternate history about the outcome of the American Civil War because so many fewer readers know anything about it. ...

The best alternate histories ... focus not on battle maneuvers but on the daily strivings of individual human beings – any of whom might have existed, had things gone differently. Their strange half-life in the reader’s mind is more poignant, somehow, than the lives of other fictional characters, since we, too, create and destroy alternate versions of ourselves through our actions every day. ... At its best, the alternate history reminds us that we all change the world.

"Film Noir" feel

Perhaps my favorite aspect of this novel is the "film noir" feel of a mid 20th century murder/mystery. Every detail of the book, from the terse mannerisms of Landsman (the down-on-his-luck homocide detective) to the winding plot peppered with lowlife thugs and wealthy aristocrats smacks of a Humphrey Bogart film.

My Thoughts on The Yiddish Policemen's Union

I agree with the comments of others who said that they found the unfamiliar terminology distracting. To me, the majority of the words seemed to sound the same, and seeing as I know absolutely zilch about Jewish culture (or any religion for that matter), I found myself confused often. In addition, I also have never been a big history buff either. So I was thankful for knowing that this book was an alternate history before I began, or...

Regardless of the foreign culture and terminology, I did enjoy the story. While the book is hardly the page turner that Little Brother is, I found myself wanting to continue because I was curious as to how the story unfolded. But I can't help but ask myself if the character of Landsman was entirely realistic. He seemed like a completely different character by the end of the book. I am not completely sure of this, but doesn't the entire story (minus the flashbacks, of course) take place within a week? A little more or less? Does anyone else feel like this?

My Opinion of Policemen's Union

I didn't care that much for this book. Partly, I think it was the details and the unfamiliar terminology that distracted me from the story's flow. Mostly, however, I think it was because I felt apathetic towards most of the characters, Landsman in particular. I thought he was rather a cliché character-an alcoholic policeman who's down on his luck and has very little to live for besides his job. Since I didn't have any strong feelings for the characters, I could have put the book down at any point and not felt the need to pick it up and continue reading.

"Take My Privacy, Please!"

Daniel's privacy concerns about OnStar reminded me of this 2005 New York Times commentary by Ted Koppel.

Exciting News

For those who are a fan of both "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" and the Cohen Brothers: you will be excited to know that they will direct the film adaptation of this novel after the production of their next "dark comedy:" "A Serious Man."

A Different Brand of Science Fiction

What I mean by the title is that alternate history is a much different kind of science of fiction than I am used to. Before this class, I would not have thought of Yiddish Policemen's Union as science fiction. When I think SF, I think of exotic technologies that we only dream of.

When I heard that it was an alternate history novel I was not very excited. I have not really ever read one before and thought I would not enjoy it because it would be unfamiliar and boring.

That being said, I really enjoyed the book. I love detective stories and I thought Chabon did an excellent job. It was difficult for me to put the book down. Chabon deals with a sensitive issue that has been going on for a long time, and I really liked the way he handled it.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union: Because aren't all hardboiled detectives really Jews on the inside?

First off, sorry for the exceedingly long topic name. Secondly, I'm a Jew, there's no way around it. My dad's Jewish (/Buddhist/agnostic/other/...it makes filling out the demographics on standardized tests a pain in the ass) my mom's Christian (sorta), which further complicates matters, but in the end my world view is pretty similar to that espoused by Landsman. Additionally, and most importantly, my moniker (or handle, as Marcus calls them) on the Interwebs is jewbacca, which pretty much ends the debate in my opinion.

As my topic title suggests, I was just thinking about how all detectives have essentially the same characteristics as many of the "yids" in the novel. All detectives (at least of the "noir" tradition) are essentially pessimistic and jaded, masking a deep rooted resilience and code of values that persist despite what hardships they may face. The "Jewish" aspect of the equation really doesn't factor in as much as one might thing, as most Jews in this day and age are increasingly secular, effectively reducing being Jewish to a collection of values, perspectives, saying, jokes, and customs, but not necessarily any real religious dogma. I say this with the caveat that I'm no historian, but in my experience most Jews don't sweat going to temple much.

So, given this, I thought it was entirely appropriate that the detective genre would be adapted to narrate the trials and tribulations of a Jewish protagonist. Having said that, I'd like to pose a few question regarding the science fiction aspects of this story. Basically, I'm going to leave you guys with all the hard work. Sorry, but don't worry I'm sure I'll feel bad for it later (again, the whole Jewish mentality...)

To what degree is this story a detective novel, and to what degree is it an alternate history? Personally, I feel that the detective aspect of the story complements the alternate history, as it allows Landsman to act as a sort of audience surrogate helping us to go along with discovering Chabon's revisionist history by framing everything in the guise of the "mystery". Hope that made sense, what do you guys think?

In what ways are the more religious and spiritual aspects of this novel (ex. The Messiah) analogous to certain sci-fi tropes like the alien outsider in such novels as Stranger in a Strange Land for example?
You're on your own for this one, as I'm really just throwing this one into the ether.

Well, that's all folks, I've got some potato latkes cooking...

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book. I really liked how things were revealed, and that everything tied together at the end. And I loved the setting and the dark feel of the story. It felt real, and the actions of the characters made sense based on what their world is like. But at the same time, it was kind of difficult for me to get into at first. I think part of that was that I had to get used to the language and keep track of the names. It's very different from anything that I've read. Overall, I do think I enjoyed it.