Monday, March 4, 2024

En Suite Mystery of Life

This is a current photo from my bathroom. Two people use this bathroom. Two. Do you see anything wrong here? Why is no one talking about this? Toothbrushes breed, people. Left alone, in damp conditions, they multiply like relatives at the reading of a will. If you believe that the Rothschild’s ordered the Illuminati to keep Trump out of office during their great virus test, that’s fine.

But I’ve heard that one. How secret is a conspiracy that I know all about? Out here on Grand Island. No, it’s the conspiracies that we haven’t heard about that are shaping our society.

One of them involves getting extra toothbrushes into your house. YOUR HOUSE. Look for them.

Ah! Sweet mystery of life
At last I've found thee.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Super-Earth Mother, Review

Super-Earth Mother by Guy Immega gives birth to a complete and fascinating world - raising, educating and challenging the reader along the way. The novel is everything a new work of science fiction wants to be when it grows up: Thoughtful.

I was immediately enchanted by an AI story in the first person. The reader gets a clear look at immense intelligence, still limited in its understanding of humans and our nature. The approach is enlightening and sometimes just, plain funny.

As the novel continued, what I found remarkable about Mother is the range of topics and ideas Immega musters in the course of the story. Genetics, Astro physics, linguistics, medicine, computer architecture – it sounds perhaps too much, but it isn’t. He pushes foreword on every subject he needs in order to tell a compelling story. The story is always first, there are no side-trips just to show off some shinny new concept. Nope. We get the opposite, done the hard way. When the story requires interstellar propulsion and navigation, we are treated to the tackle of those issues. When the story leads us to more internal needs, like food, water and company, we examine those issues with fresh insight. The story always leads, which when you step back and look, is kind of amazing.

Immega didn’t set out to write about robots because he knew about robots. He set out to write a story set in a fully imagined future and had to learn about everything a world entails - biology, psychology, chemistry, etc. - along the way. Crazy. And correct. With the story always leading the ideas, the story stays good. This is an enticing, enveloping read, with an organic, realistic pacing and flow. I will be back for more. I hope the gestation of Immega’s next novel is not too terribly long.

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Started Teaching

No time for silly blogs. I started teaching - English 202, Writing and Research - and haven't had time for much beyond lesson plans, grading and trying to stay at least 15 seconds ahead of my students. Perhaps I'll catch up at the holidays. Perhaps . . . 

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Rosetta Mind Review

If I were to speak about this book - out loud, not in the blog of a metaphor -  I’d say SCIENCE fiction. Emphasis has shifted over the years. I’m not a pure, hard-science loyalist, so I’m not going pop out of my trench and charge at Star Wars fans, waving Claire McCague’s Rosetta Mind as a banner. But, well, if I were going to pick a new book to lob in the cause, this would be the one.

The novel is packed with so much speculative science, from so many different disciplines, that I finished stunned it was written by one person. McCague is Asimov-like in her command of so many different branches of knowledge, combined with an artist’s sense of timing and story. Only she’s a bit funnier than Isaac, which helps when you think the world is going to end.

But don’t let the science pin you in your own trench. McCague has created a cast that includes scientists with different specialties as well as non-scientists. The physicists talk to biologists who talk to doctors as they all need each others' help. The reader benefits from the cross-study conversations. In most cases, when I had a question, someone else inside the book did too. And it was answered.
“Did they stridulate?” Bernie asked.
“That’s a fancy word.” And Bernie goes on to explain it. Not in lecture form. We’re all adults here.

Before you plunge into this one, you’re better off reading McCague’s Rosetta Man. But I would’ve told you that before a sequel ever appeared, looming over the literary field like a Zeppelin, with loudspeakers blaring “Peace to all. The science can be as fun as the fiction. I’ve brought squirrels to prove it.”

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

The Rosetta Mind

The Rosetta Mind comes out Aug. 25. I have not read it, so I can't review it, but this is the second from Claire McCague in this series. I loved the first  - The Rosetta Man - so very much. It is a first-contact story that takes the problem of alien communication so seriously it becomes pretty funny. No babble fish or universal translators here. The Rosetta books posit aliens that are, well, alien.  Not the inscrutable kind, the more squirrely variety. 

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Hire me to tear down your swing set

If you have an old backyard play set with ladders, fort, slide and swings I will disassemble it for you. That way you won’t have to hear the wees and squeals and laughter that comes with every crack of a board or breaking of a beam. For you, no memories of pirate ships, space stations, and shops that sold you rocks claiming to be ice cream. The best kind of ice cream. The kind that never melts. You won't recall a little one swinging higher than safe, sliding faster than wise, trampling mud where you wanted to grow grass and now don’t care. Nope. Hire me. I work cheap. In fact, I’ll work for nothing. I’ll tear down your old swing set for free if you might tear down mine.

Thursday, June 16, 2022

This podcast will make you feel better

It is customary at the gym to pay no attention to the other attendees. We're all in various stages of wellness. Thank goodness. Anyone who by chance, or flouting custom, noticed me today would have thought either 1.) this guy can't handle what he's doing or 2.) he is listening to the audio version of The Notebook. I was listening to a podcast.

Teresa Teuscher at T3fitt got my wife Sarah and our friend Jan to talk about the work they do as World Spine Outreach. They don't like to talk about it. Partly because they are shy, partly because they don't want to be the focus - its about the kids. Mostly, I think now, because the story is very, very moving.

WSO helps children with spine problems, mostly scoliosis. Every year WSO puts together millions of dollars in donations  - medical supplies and time and skill - and uses those resources to make lives better. All of it. No overhead, no salaries. You will not find another charity that passes donations through to those in need with less friction. It's an ongoing miracle. 

Ironically, one of the reasons this operation works so well is the selflessness. Which means Sarah and Jan, the founders, never boast or brag. Almost to a fault. Singer, songwriter, and scoliosis warrior Tina Parol convinced them that a tiny toot of the horn might help WSO help even more people. T3fitt agrees.

Check it out here.