The three greatest things I read today are Charles Stross's Rogue Farm, Bruce Sterling's The Beautiful and the Sublime, and Ursula LeGuin's The Author of Acacia Seeds.

The Beautiful and the Sublime is Sterling at his best.

The Beautiful and the Sublime by Bruce Sterling
Driftglass by Samuel Delany
The Author of Acacia Seeds by Ursula LeGuin
Pretty Boy Crossover by Pat Cadigan
Forever Yours, Anna by Kate Wilhelm
Dust by Greg Egan
Air Raid by John Varley
Forlesen by Gene Wolfe
Surface Tension by James Blish
Balanced Ecology by James H. Schmitz

New Reads

John Varley's Air Raid is the most moving thing I've read in a while. Next up us Zelazny's The Engine at Heartspring's Center, and Le Guin's The New Atlantis.

The Moon and what it stands for in SF

When something is within our physical reach, and has been made much of and nearly exhausted in a rigorous kind of way, it rarely appeals to the imagination in the same way that a conjured up concept would, or something not immediately verifiable. This statement, of course, assumes a lot about the nature of Imagination, but what we are interested in today is not just any kind of imagination, but the science fictional imagination, something that exists right inbetween the kind of pleasure to be had in whimsy and the kind of joy to be had from arriving at some knowledge of the 'real' world. The SF-nal imagination partakes of both liberally, sometimes more from one than the other.

In this respect, the Moon is a very rewarding motif in Science Fiction, and points to several interesting inclinations when it comes to the genre. I use the term 'rewarding', because it, in itself, acts as a microcosm of all the possible flavours that science fiction affords: ranging from the sublime, to the grotesque, and finally, to serving as a space which serves as philosophical playground and testing field.

We shall look at five texts: Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, Requiem by Robert Heinlein, The Distance of the Moon by Italo Calvino, Hothouse by Brian Aldiss, and finally, Griffin's Egg by Michael Swanwick

In these five texts, we see a very definite kind of progression, that also says a lot about the anxieties and expectations Science Fiction breeds, perhaps more so as a mode than as genre.

Cleaved

When you have nothing but your mind to entertain you, you start seeing things. Like the wall in front of me, with the myriad cracks spreading from the ceiling to the floor. The left one looks like a lightning bolt, as anyone can tell. The one on the right however, with the little corner edging inwards?...that looks like a gun. I think of telling Vincent but then remember its been a week since he's stopped speaking or even eating much. Vincent has started resembling a mantis, with his arms bent and stick like. Come to think of it, I’m very insect like myself. The little slab of glass nailed to the wall tells me exactly what kind: a cross between a fly, thanks to my bulging eyeballs, and an earwig. That’s how my goatee’s shaped…like an earwig’s pincers.

The cell is damp but the food is excellent. It’s a pity Vincent doesn’t agree. He misses his wife’s cooking. Heck, I miss his wife’s cooking. I miss his wife more, but I won’t quite go there. Fifteen minutes earlier, a familiar gruff voice shouted "Food!" and shoved the bowl in, and today we have soup with nothing floating in it and bread only two days old by the looks of it. Oh joy! And still Vincent sleeps. You’d almost think he’s dead! As I sit down on the damp floor and say Grace and start my meal, I wonder why they never, in all this time, gave Vincent his share of food. He’s always been a skimpy eater but even then. Why should I have to share? Not that I had to for the last couple of days but its unfair. Much like its unfair of Vincent to have stopped entertaining me with his jokes and fond reminiscing. Such an enormous wimp, that man, but he was funny alright. And he helped make things less dreary. Vincent had a way with descriptions. The world as we knew it came alive right in front of my eyes. So yes, I miss Vincent and I wish he’d stop sulking and wake up. “Here’s to you, ol’ chap”, I say and make an invisible toast to him. He makes no noise, and lies there, deathly still.

I finish my meal and utter a sigh of contentment and look again. It’s no longer a gun now. It’s a house. It’s a house and wait, there’s more…the little slab of wall that’s missing there, that right there is a backyard and the specks of dirt…they look like lilies, swaying in the breeze. And just then a breeze really does blow in through the grills from the sea just beyond . Reminds me of a few lines Vincent used to say aloud from time to time. Something that had lilies and the sea in it.

Someone’s coming. But I don’t feel like getting up. It feels pleasant suddenly. I think its Geoffrey again. What’s he want now?

“Oy Vincent, mate”, he said again, laughing that disgusting phlegmatic laugh of his. “Not too many days left now, is there?”

Something with the lilies and the sea. I forget the exact lines.

The Bird

I have lived in more cities in this lifetime than I have known songs. In one such city, I remember happening upon the strangest creature I have ever had the opportunity to observe from close quarters. It used to hang in a cage right above the Pawn shop I used to work at, and I thought it was like a bird, and every morning, as I made my way to work on my overgrown and by then deliberately uncommunicative vehicle (I remember watering it every day, morning and night, exactly the way it'd always wanted), right in front of my shop at 7 in the morning would pass by a group of meerkats, hurrying to their respective burrow schools, shrilly talking amongst themselves in wide eyed interest at the day about to begin, and this large, hulking bird, sitting in its cage, would try and match them word for word, scream for scream. I sensed that it was the bird's firm belief that if he could keep at it long enough, he'd pick up every word the meerkats (the primary population of the city) knew, and soon they'd be impressed and let it go. And day after day, when I wasn't swamped with work, and when my attention would be allowed to momentarily shift from a bunch of customers to the bird's plaintive cries, I did find that it was getting better and better in its attempts, to the extent that it started meaning what it said. The meerkats would now stop and cheer, and the bird literally beamed, and bowed. It never failed to amaze me that it'd picked up so much in so little time, and I found myself clapping along. The desperation had left its face, however. The last time I had a talk with him, the bird now being able to converse more than adequately and fluently, it said to me that it had fallen in love. With the language. It didn't mind the cage anymore. It could think in words, something it couldn't do before. It enjoyed the attention. It craved it. And its eyes shone and shone as it said these things to me, and I wondered if I felt sorry for it anymore, and realized I still did.

Elsewhere, Artists by the Sea

That year saw the largest mass exodus to the shores of what everyone was calling 'The Living Sea'. A mass exodus of artists, performers, actors, singers and bored academicians, no less. For something wonderful was taking place in certain distinct zones all over the world: people were creating some very unnerving pieces of art near these places. I can bear witness to this fact. A rather large man, in his underwear, sunbathing and waiting for inspiration to hit him, suddenly broke forth in the most surreal contralto. I jerked out of my sleep and stared at him in silent wonder, along with a hundred other people. That was yet another something that struck me very odd: inspiration struck everyone, but only one at a time. Not till someone was finished with whatever they were enthralled with could someone else enter the fray. Well, as you might gather by now, this lasted for quite some time. There were hundreds of famished minds to cover. But what WAS this living sea? The large icthiyosaur hadn't been seen in almost a month since a part of the sea started pulsing ever so softly, and bulging outwards when it did so. The water hadn't changed colour or anything of that sort, but what struck me very fishy was the sudden hush. No animals in sight. No albatrosses, no crabs, and like I'd said, no icthiyosaur. Was the ocean channeling only human minds? And only a certain kind of creativity? By now I'd seen people craft elaborate, intricate murals in the sand, prance into the foam with a delicate non chalance only trained ballerinas were capable of, and even compose poetry, amazement etched on their faces as the words squeezed out of their mouths. It couldn't be that, however. For someone who hadn't learned to ride a bicycle all his life, here I am, riding the waves on a surfboard I filched from the store on the beach. The water seem almost alive in how it's nudging me along. Everyone's in a daze waiting for my 'turn' to end. The owner of the shop himself was weaving baskets a few hours before. He said that's what he'd always wanted to do.

Skin Deep

They say there's a giant living here nearby, in the air or the sea no one knows for certain, but a giant it is. When it arrives, it blots out the sun, the moons, the stars, and your fears. It engulfs the sea and becomes it, each vein on it's body rippling like the waves it has replaced, each ridge on it's shoulders bobbing up and down in the distance like so many sailboats. It never makes a sound however, unless you learn to listen.

I have crept away from the city, all the way across town, to the sea, and I was afraid I'd see rust and oil slicks and broken machinery and dead fishes. And I did see all of that, and yet I told myself that this is what is expected, and I cannot do anything about it. The time for doing is past; you had your chance. So I accepted it for what it was, with a pathetic sort of honour involved in the proceedings. Human beings do that very well: lend honour to all sorts of absurd emotions.

It is very very late at night and I sit on this rugged beach and there are too many things strewn across it for me to not wince once or twice when I look up at the moon and back at them again. I wait because there has been talk that he shall arrive tonight, and when he arrives, he expects nothing from you. You have work in the morning, back breaking work, but everything shall melt away the minute he is here. For he himself would not give a moment's attention to your plight, or for it's plight. If there has been possible in this day and age for a mind to not look back upon itself with the slightest of doubt or ego or self loathing or pride, it is his. We simply bask in it's presence.

And yet, it is a sea creature with a brain the size of a football, for all I know. It has travelled many many miles through space and grown stranded here. You're making too much of it. You're just trying to escape your predicament. Don't. You'll not like the result.

And just like that I am lifted on it's leathery skin, and the water comes up and recedes along its surface and I'm already in the very middle of the ocean by the time I realize what has been going on. He lets out a cry that pierces my heart and rends meaningless all my hollow observations. It wants to fly. It's wings, several thousand miles of it, lie tattered in the water. Those aren't its fins, its wings. It cries and it cries and I wish I could grab hold of it tight and tell it, "Yes, it's okay, it's alright", but I can't because it's not me and if I want it to be me it won't be right. And the cries become softer and softer till it goes away entirely, and I'm back on the beach, and the creature's left, and dawn breaks, and the glaring colors and the honking ships and the smoke assault senses already battered, and perhaps soothe them with stink and familiarity.