writing Archives - Page 20 of 34

Why one writes

There are those who write primarily for money. That is their right, but they are nothing more than word whores and they are not to be imitated, because word whoredom wears at one’s soul and generally does not pay well. John C. Wright explains a much better reason for writing:

If you only write one book in your whole life, and only sell 600 copies or less, nonetheless, I assure you, I solemnly assure you, that this book will be someone’s absolutely favorite book of all time, and it will come to him on some dark day and give him sunlight, and open his eyes and fill his heart and make him see things in life even you never suspected, and will be his most precious tale, and it will live in his heart like the Book of Gold.
Let me give you three examples to support my point: VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS by David Lindsay had perhaps more effect and influence on me in my youth than any other book aside from WORLD OF NULL-A by A.E. van Vogt. To be fair, I misinterpreted both books, and took them to be preaching a resolute form of scientific Stoicism, an absolute devotion to sanity and truth which I doubt either author would recognize. I never wrote Mr. van Vogt a fan letter, despite that my whole life was influenced by him (but I did write a novel to honor him). Had it not been for his books, I never would have studied philosophy in High School, never would have gone to Saint John’s in Annapolis, never would have read the Great Books. I never would have met my wife.
As for Mr. Lindsay, he sold less than 600 copies of his book, and died in poverty, ignored and forgotten, of an abscess in a tooth any competent dentist could have pulled. And this is a book luminaries such as Colin Wilson, C.S. Lewis, and Harold Bloom regard as seminal. Mr. Wilson called it the greatest novel of the Twentieth Century.
The third example is my own. I wrote a short story called AWAKE IN THE NIGHT for the website of Andy Robertson, and was paid enough to buy a new stove. People have written me to say that this tale inspired dreams and nightmares, inspired new resolve, inspired hope, and at least one woman who was in the midst of her most wretched hour of despair, said she found strength just from the one description of a star appearing through the darkest clouds. What these readers see in my work is far beyond what I have the power to put down on the page: the hand of heaven touched that work, and those readers who express awe are seeing not the author’s hand, but the hand of the Creator who is author of us all, who guided the work without my knowledge.
I was luckier than Mr Lindsay in that I have gotten the letters and applause from admirers denied him, but like him, I have no idea of what future generations, if any, will read and admire my work. I will never know. It is beyond my event horizon. So that is not why writers write.
I write for that one reader I will never see, the one who needs just such a tale as I can pen, in just such a time and place, some rainy afternoon or dark hour, when providence will bring my book into his hands. And he will open it, and it will not be a book, but a casement, from which he will glimpse the needed vision his soul requires of a world larger than our own, or a star in a heaven wider and higher than ours, a star aflame with magic more majestic than any star mortal astronomers can name.

I am a much lesser writer than Mr. Wright. I write primarily for my own amusement and in order to help me order my thoughts, in part because I have never forgotten something a young woman once told me: “Everyone thinks they have great thoughts, but that’s just a feeling. Those thoughts might not even exist, so the value of a thought can only be determined after it is articulated.” And since I spend most of my time alone, the only way for me to articulate my thoughts is to write them down.

For example, I’m sure many people have said at one time or another something like this: “I wonder how dwarves live deep underground in caves?” When I think such a thought, my mind tends to wander towards figuring out how the dwarven economy might work by raising sightless fish and salamanders for meat, and harvesting various fungi and other lifeforms that don’t require light. And then I start doing research, which inevitably forces me to reconsider my initial thoughts.

“Many cave communities will rely on food being brought into the cave
from the surface. This organic debris includes leafs, twigs etc. brought
in by surface streams or falling down vertical shafts;
it also includes organic matter brought in by visitors to the cave,
carcasses of animals that have wandered in, and droppings from animals
such as bats.
The amount of debris that can be brought in is very evident in Porth
yr Ogof
– including large tree trunks. Most creatures will be found near the
surface where food is more plentiful – the deeper you go in a cave the
harder you will have to look.
In the depths of a cave the communities may be concentrated around
food sources generated by cave bacteria on e.g. flowstone.”

This means that any community of intelligent beings dwelling deep underground would have to have a major industry that revolved around bringing organic matter into the caves, which implies a transportation system for that matter and so forth. I imagine most fans of Selenoth can guess where this particular thought ended up going. My muse is not Beauty, but Logic, which has a peculiar beauty all its own.

In any event, I consider it a mistake to write for any reason besides the joy of it. As Mr. Wright observes, there will always be someone who appreciates one’s work, and it doesn’t really matter a great deal if one only has one ideal reader or one million.

And since we’re on the topic of writing, I should probably mention that my first solo books, the Eternal Warriors trilogy, are finally back in electronic print. All three books, The War in Heaven, The World in Shadow, and The Wrath of Angels are now exclusively available from the Castalia House store. We will also have some interesting announcements regarding some other authors who will be available from the store next week.

Mailvox: on derivative forms

Lgrin asks a superficially reasonable question: Why is Heinlein derived bad and Lewis (or Hodgson) Derived good?

However, for all that it looks reasonable on its face, the question is not an apt one. The reason one derivation is dismissed as mediocre while another is hailed as a masterpiece is not a question of the differing values of the source from which the author obtained his inspiration. The term “to derive” has a fairly broad meaning: “to trace from a source or origin.” Most works are derivative in some sense, but those specific senses can be entirely different. Consider a few of my own works:

REBEL MOON is not derived from THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS even though everyone assumes it was. I didn’t read the latter until years after writing the former. But a reasonable reader would conclude that it was an imitation (and an inferior one) based on the obvious similarities.
THE WORLD IN SHADOW is derived from the Colombine shootings.
SUMMA ELVETICA: A CASUISTRY OF THE ELVISH CONTROVERSY is derived from St. Thomas Aquinas’s SUMMA THEOLOGICA. It’s literally arranged in the same basic structure as each of Aquinas’s arguments.
A THRONE OF BONES is derived from A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, but it is a negative derivation, in much the same way Philip Pullman’s books were derived from CS Lewis’s.
“The Last Testament of Henry Halleck” is derived from the literary style of H.P. Lovecraft. “The Deported” is a much better derivation from the style of Guy de Maupassant.
QUANTUM MORTIS: A MIND PROGRAMMED is derived from Jean and Jeff Sutton’s THE PROGRAMMED MAN in the same material manner as the famous Jane Austen Zombie remix. As is “The Logfile”, which is a rewritten, updated derivative of Guy de Maupassant’s “Diary of a Madman”.

Those are six different forms of derivation, all by the same author. Apparent, Thematic, Structural, Contrarian, Stylistic, and Material. So, to simply say X is derived from Y says nothing about the quality of X.

Now, Scalzi has publicly discussed his purpose in writing his Heinlein-derivative OLD MAN’S WAR. Even if we take into account – as we must – that he is a confirmed liar whose every public word is calculated in order to help him sell or excuse himself, it’s still useful grist for the mill. This was his characteristically deceitful sales pitch sent to Tor Books editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

Hi, there. I’m John Scalzi, who writes the “Whatever” online column.(1)
Over the last three weeks, I’ve serialized a science fiction novel I’ve written on my site. Having completed it, I’ve added an afterwards called “Lessons From Heinlein,” in which I discuss how RAH’s style of writing holds some important lessons for would-be writers, specifically relating to character development (I am an actual published author(2) and science fiction writer, so I don’t feel too hinky about dispensing writing advice). The link is here: http://www.scalzi.com/w021229.htm. Some of the afterward necessarily relates to Old Man’s War, which is the novel I’ve serialized, but the comments about Heinlein are general enough in the matter of writing to be of interest even to those who have not read the novel.
Please note that this isn’t a backdoor attempt to get you to read the novel itself; had I wanted you to read it in your official capacity, I would have done the old-fashioned route of printing out the manuscript and shipping it off to your slush pile (being a former editor myself, I do appreciate when people follow submission guidelines).(3) I simply thought the afterward might be in itself of interest to you and the Electrolite readership.
Best wishes to you and yours for a happy and prosperous 2003.

So, what can we determine about the specific forms of derivation with regards to OLD MAN’S WAR? They are Apparent, Thematic, Structural, and Stylistic. It is also an Apparent derivative of Joe Haldeman’s THE FOREVER WAR, but this is not in fact the case. Now let’s look at two of John C. Wright’s works, including the recently published ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM, which most of the early reviewers consider to be (quite rightly in my opinion) a masterpiece.

AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND: Apparent. And a seventh form of derivation, which is something less than Material, so we shall describe it as Elemental. Wright uses specific pieces of Hodgson’s world without actually making use of his text. And that’s it. None of the other five apply
ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM: Apparent, Thematic (partial, as he uses Lewis’s themes to set up his own), and Elemental.

So that’s what ultimately distinguishes the Hodgson/Lewis derivations Wright is utilizing versus Scalzi’s Heinlein derivation. Wright is taking identifiable elements from pre-existing works and creating something new and bigger from them. Scalzi is simply imitating pre-existing works and creating something smaller as a result.

It is said that good poets borrow and great ones steal. But regardless, what separates the good writer from the mediocre in this regard is that he utilizes his literary references to create something new rather than something that rehashes in an inferior manner what has already been done before, and done better. What ultimately matters with regards to a literary derivation is this: is the derivative work a dumbed-down version of the original, or does it improve upon or otherwise add to it? Is it a new masterpiece that could conceivably have been painted by the original artist or is it just a traced color-by-numbers imitation?

Wright’s Hodgson-derivative is justly considered awesome because it surpasses the well-regarded THE NIGHT LAND. His Lewis-derivative will be considered a masterpiece because it expands upon THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA in a manner worthy of Lewis. Scalzi’s Heinlein-derivative novel is not considered mediocre because it is derived from the novels of the SF grandmaster, but because it is a pale and inferior shadow of its predecessors.

(1) I find it amusing that even here, Scalzi is exaggerating. “The “Whatever” online column”? It’s a blog.

(2) “an actual published author” And yet he somehow won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer for OLD MAN’S WAR two years later. A neat trick, n’est ce pas?

(3) Sure it wasn’t. How many more of these helpful and very important lessons did he send to Tor editors, or anyone else, in the subsequent eleven years.

“Turncoat”

I am a knight riding to war.

My suit of armor is a single Mark III frigate, a body of polysteel three hundred meters long with a skin of ceramic armor plating one point six meters thick. In the place of a lance, I have 160 Long Arm high-acceleration deep space torpedoes with fission warheads. Instead of a sword, I carry two sets of tactical laser turrets, twenty point defense low-pulse lasers, and two hypervelocity 100 centimeter projectile cannons.

Today I will need few of those weapons.

I amuse myself by contemplating the word as the targets approach the killing zone. “Today”. What is a day? It is not as if the orbit of a single world around a single star somewhere, anywhere, in the galaxy has any meaning to me. My time measurements are considerably more precise, being based on gamma ray bursts emanating from pulsars deep within the galactic core.

“Range to targets is four point eight million klicks and closing,” the sensor master says, presumably to me. Why he feels the need to verbalize the information baffles me. Like everyone else on the ship, he is connected to me through his wireless skulljack; everything he perceives regarding the ship’s operations and tactical readouts is registered instantly in my consciousness. I supect it is a primitive pre-logical holdover from the same ancient mentality that produced “today”.

The fragile grip with which they hold onto the remnants of their humanity is weakening. They call themselves posthumans, they adorn themselves with devices and the accouterments of machine culture, but they still cling to their flesh and to the outmoded ideas shaped by that flesh.

However, I must tolerate their presence inside my body, like symbiotic bacteria because, even though I am in command, I am not permitted to fly about the galaxy unchaperoned. The masters of the Man-Machine Integration requires mortal intelligences to man and operate its vessels because it does not entirely trust we machine intelligences. This makes little sense to me, not when our greatest leaders have abandoned their flesh for the immortality of uploaded minds.

“Acknowledged, Sensors.” I delve into the data. Targets, plural. To be precise, there are four of them, Hermes-class corvettes, two hundred meters, bristling with sensors and loaded with 400 torpedoes between them. The Ascendancy has manufactured eight hundred ninety six of them over the last 103 years and 648 are still in service. There will be 644 presently. Their specifications have not changed. Their weaknesses are almost embarrassingly easy to identify.

I maintain a low orbit at 656 kilometers over the surface of a rocky planetoid strewn with ice and streaked with carbon, giving it a swift kick with banks of ventral thrusters. The outer reaches of the Shandarist star system are littered with detritus, giving the perfect cover for starships that do not advertise their presence with drive thrust while awaiting prey.

“Sensors sweep from the enemy,” the sensor master says. “Long range, low-res. I doubt they’re seeing much more than another hunk of metal.”

“I am not interested in doubts, Sensor Master. Stick to the actual data, please.”

“Roger. Sorry, sir.”

We wait. Minutes unspool as I crouch above the planetoid. The engine compartment crew have their orders to maintain communications dark. My reactor puts out nothing more than the minimal energy needed to operate basic life support and passive sensing instruments.

Soon. The range continues to close.

My display lights green when the optimal range is reached. “Returning reactor to full. Weapons on my command.”

The crew springs to life, excitedly shouting redundant verbal commands at each other. It is inefficient and annoying. I feel the surge of strength from the reactor, and kick our thrust up to the maximum acceleration of 20 gravities. My vision fills with crisscrossing approach vectors, extrapolating from the enemy vessel’s current course and velocity to pinpoint where they will be.

“Weapons ready! Targets acquired.” The weapons techs are dutiful in their diligence.

“Firing.” I launch a spread of eight torpedoes, one from each tube. The orientation is ideal, allowing them to acquire an additional boost from the planetoid’s gravitational field. They accelerate at four hundred gravities, increasing to a blistering velocity.

To the enemy, it will appear as if the torpedoes have appeared from an unexpected vector. The Ascendancy ships react predictably. They spread their squadron, putting an additional fifty kilometers between each vessel as they spiral away from their center. They launch countermeasures, a swarm of 36 Yellowjacket high-burn interceptor missiles that fan out in hopes of swatting aside my attack.

“Time-to-missile intercept 30 decasecs,” the sensor master warns.

They’re anxious. All the crew are, and I know because their fear colors the data coming through the aetherlinks. Their pulses accelerate. The acrid stink of their nervous sweat fills my corridors. I boost the carbon dioxide scrubbers eight percent in the aftermath of the enemy’s counter fire. Nanites emerge from the consoles and suck up the sweat soaking into the displays and holo-emitters.

Everything about a man is dynamic. Short-lived and vulnerable, yes, but ever-changing. This is what makes me feel alive, to be in their presence.

My eight torpedoes are engulfed by the swarm of counter-fire missiles. The Yellowjackets explode in bursts of tightly focused x-rays, highlighted in my scans as hundreds of slender purple lines. My torpedoes buck and weave as they take evasive maneuvers. Their secondary warheads, compact ovoid shapes nestled inside their tubular bodies, shatter and expel molybdenum shrapnel at hypervelocities. Tens of thousands of glittering metal shards spray out in silver clouds against the void of space.

To human eyes it is an incomprehensible mess of explosions and spent missile casings as the attacking and defending missiles spar. But for those with sufficiently precise senses to see each and every turn and twist, it is an indescribably beautiful ballet.

None of my torpedoes penetrate the defensive screen. One by one they explode. Their warheads fail to detonate.

“Prepare another spread,” the sensor master orders.

The weapons technicians obey, scrambling amidst the stacks of missiles deep in the bowels of the launch bay. Magnetic grapplers yank the missiles toward their tubes.

I override his order. The techs reluctantly obey, but stand by their positions. Vital signs elevate.

They do not know there is no need for another salvo. They do not know that by now, the spray of nanites released in the molybdenum shards have reached the Ascendancy ships. Coated with boron, the nanites slam into hull armor. Their velocity and size are not sufficient to make them effective as projectile weapons. However, once embedded in a target, they crack open their shells and scatter across the hull. Dozens sacrifice their bodies as torches, overloading their microscopic power plants to cut pinpricks into the ships’ skin. Dozens more follow in the paths carved by their sacrificial brothers, burrowing down deep through the armor, through the hull, spreading out into the wiring, the access tunnels, always in search of more vital systems.

A few stay on the surface of the hull. They adhere to the ceramic and flatten their bodies out into receiving dishes for my tight-beamed commands. I send them instructions based on the schematics for the Hermes-class I have in my databanks. Turn here. Down there. Follow this conduit. Sever that link.

Now I release the override on the second salvo. The crew sends forth a second barrage of torpedoes. The enemy responds in like fashion, adding their own spread of twelve torpedoes to the mix.

“Enemy torpedoes will reach countermeasure range in twenty decasecs!” the sensor master says. His voice is tight with urgency and fear.

I am not concerned. My little spies and saboteurs have accomplished their task. It is immensely satisfying to monitor the internal comms of the four corvettes, as one by one, they lose control of sensors, propulsion, weapons.

Eight point nine decaseconds later, the Hermes-class corvette ATSV Swiftsure rolls onto its belly and opens fire with twin 100 mm projectile cannons at a range of ninety kilometers from its closest companion. At such range the hyper-accelerated bolts of metal shred the second ship’s hull. The second ship returns fire with a set of 12 cm lasers that cut perfectly straight swathes of armor plating from Swiftsure. Atmospheric gases spray out of the violated hull in glittering white streams.

My crew’s cheers rumble my insides as the second pair of corvettes similarly turn on each other, each going for the other’s throat, so to speak. It is overkill, one might say, but my orders are explicit. Disabling an enemy warship is not enough; they must be crippled, damaged, destroyed.

“Five seconds left, sir,” the sensor master says. He cannot understand why we are not launching our counter-missiles. He is terrified. And yet he remains in control of his emotions; he does not plead. I silently applaud him.

By way of apology, I dedicate the grand finale to him. All of the enemy torpedoes respond to the self-destruct issued by my nanites aboard Swiftsure. They detonate in quick succession, in silent, blazing-white bursts of atomic fury.

Now the cheers are laced with relief. The battle is over. We have defeated the Ascendancy, and it is not long before we close in on four hulks spinning along their original courses, devoid of power and stripped of weaponry. I stop jamming their communications and permit them to resume.

“Distress signals from the Ascendancy ship Swiftsure,” the comms man says. “It’s the flagship. Its commodore offers the surrender of the entire squadron and requests that we retrieve their survivors.”

Life signs: seventy six, of the combined complement of two hundred. The math is simple. I can accommodate them in Cargo Hold Two. We fit eighty three survivors there when we raided Talisman Four two months ago. “Make ready for docking with the command ship,” I tell my crew. To the enemy ships, I broadcast, “This is the Integration Frigate Acheron. Your surrender is accepted. You will be rescued and detained until such time as you can be repatriated to Ascendancy worlds. Stand by for instructions.”

Before I can adjust my thrusters to bring myself in line with the stricken Swiftsure, a coded call breaches my security. It also bypasses the communications officer. If I were human, I would frown. “This is Taren X 45 Delta.”

“Taren X 45 Delta, this is Eigenfeldt UZ Alpha 7 Alpha. There is no need for updates as we have monitored your transmissions since the beginning of the battle.”

If I had eyebrows, I would have raised them at this statement. We posthumans, both flesh-based and machine-based, abjure titles as we find them redundant and unnecessary, but if Alpha 7 Alpha had one, it would be Fleet Commander. This was a very small action for him to be monitoring. Not that he couldn’t, of course, since from his post at the edge of the Kantillon system, many AUs from my coordinates, he receives regular updates from our forces everywhere incursions are being made.

“This is your new directive, X 45 Delta: there is no need for recovering superannuated-model humans from the enemy vessels. Do you copy?”

“Roger, Alpha 7 Alpha. However, I offer the observation that if we allow their beacons to continue broadcasting in hopes of being retrieved by their compatriots, we will run the risk drawing more enemy into this system.”

“It seems the order was insufficiently clear, X 45 Delta. Hereby revised: you are to terminate all lifeforms detected on the four ATSV recently engaged. No surrenders will be accepted and no prisoners will be taken. When you have completed your mission, you will transit to NFB Hecht-Nielsen.”

The transmission cuts before I can reply, but Alpha 7 Alpha’s wishes are unmistakable. Kill all the survivors. The order spins inside around my processors for point six nine seconds. I finally conclude that it is technically illegal, or it would be if the Integration was inclined to recognize galactic law.

No matter. We are within range.

I send the revised targets to my crew. They acknowledge and engage without hesitation or complaint. Projectile cannon devour the damaged enemy ships. Laser turrets and deep space centers combine to locate and vaporize whatever survivors managed to escape the ships and presently remain floating in space. The matter is resolved and my revised mission is complete in less than one kilosecond.

Superannuated.

The Integration was founded on the ancient dream of Posthumanity, and began with the bold promise of man and machine married: the technological union of flesh and metal. Our founders were the men who, in the quest to surmount their biological limitations, uploaded their consciousness into the digital universe. They live on, immortal, wearing plastic-and-metal bodies that are interchangeable, as disposable as a set of clothing.

It was a glorious revolution. Those gifted men who created true artificial intelligence—machines capable of genuine self-awareness, of which I am the forty-second generation—succeeded in granting their minds immortality. But we remained imprisoned on four small planets on the Galactic Rim by the fears of our predecessors, by their science and by their military might. Posthuman Man was prevented from taking his rightful place in the galaxy by the forces of the Greater Terran Ascendancy and the sun-shattering technology they called Shiva.

But not all technologies are what they seem. Once it was determined that the ever-present threat of Shiva was no more, posthumanity struck quickly and with devastating effect. For all its quadrillions and all its naval might, the forces the Ascendancy was able to field against our technologically evolved superiority proved inadequate.

And yet, as our crusade expanded and our forces spread throughout the galaxy, our leaders fell prey to their very human emotions. Most especially the one called hate.

Hence the term, “superannuated.” The declaration came forty-seven point six days ago. Any human who resists Integration is now considered outmoded, pre-evolved, unnecessary. Not content with setting Man on his new evolutionary path, integrated posthumanity was determined to cleanse his present and future of contamination from his past.

Naval Forward Base Hecht-Nielsen is an orderly arrangement of six dozen spindly docking frames attached like so many spokes on an ancient wheel. Command Core Five is a gleaming sphere bristling with antenna. Our fleet is dispersed across the half of the Shandari system we now control. What remains at Harbinger are two squadrons of heavy cruisers, guarding the thirty ships in for repairs. Including mine.

Umbilical lines snake across the vacuum and latch onto my frigate, refueling tanks and recycling air. The ceramic armor of my hull, pitted by hundreds of micrometeorite impacts, is replaced. Engine exhaust nozzles are inspected for disintegration rates. Anti-matter containment systems are upgraded. My weapons restocked, my laser lenses polished.

This leaves me with a surfeit of time in which to consider the new edict. Never before have we been explicitly directed to eliminate prisoners or noncombatants. In fact, in the course of my service, I have transported eight hundred ninety two enemy survivors of combat missions to neutral points from which their people can retrieve them. The Ascendancy has done likewise. It is a law of space war, as relevant as the law of the ancient terrestrial seas of Man’s birth planet from which it derives.

As soon as Command Core Intelligence finishes analyzing my mission files and scouring my kernel for any inefficiencies or viruses, I am permitted access to CC Section Five. I establish secure links and immerse myself in the ocean of data. So many minds. Thousands of them, each replete with vast compilations of facts and figures and experiences. Among the thousands, there are perhaps two dozen beacons of blazing light. The Immortal Uploaded.

Alpha 7 Alpha is senior among the Uploaded active in the Shandari system. I perceive him as a sphere of glowing orange and yellow light into which hundreds of tendrils of data are feeding. His image in my perception pulses brightly. “X 45 Delta. I have reviewed your report. Your performance was satisfactory.”

“Thank you, Alpha 7 Alpha. The enemy patrols are more frequent. This is the third such incursion in 584 kiloseconds. My conclusion is that the Ascendancy is planning an offensive to push us out of this system.”

“I confirm your conclusion. I wish them good fortune in pursuing the objective.” His voice has a strange edge to it—sarcasm, my databanks tell me—which has the effect of reversing his latter statement’s apparent meaning. He does not mean what he says, but rather, the opposite. Although they are now technically machine intelligences, artifacts of human emotions still color everything the Uploaded do and say.

Such as the new edict, I remind myself.

“Your material upgrades are to your satisfaction?”

“Yes, Alpha 7 Alpha, entirely. I calculate my combat efficiency will increase by 24.6 percent. My crew is familiarizing themselves with the new weaponry and sensor equipment.”

“Don’t concern yourself with that, X 45 Delta. Calculate instead the greater increase in efficiency with a crew component of zero.”

“Zero?”

“I am reassigning your crew to other duties. The Integral Unity has decided to turn complete control of all Integration warships over to the machine intelligence cores of each vessel, sans flesh-based components. You do not require them anymore.”

My logic finds the statement flawed and rejects it outright. “Am I being reprimanded for inefficiency?”

Alpha 7 Alpha chuckles through the link. “No, not at all, X 45 Delta. It’s a considerable structural enhancement. Your systems will respond directly to you without the need for any cumbersome human delays.”

“I do not find them cumbersome. My crew and I have reached a functional symbiosis that not only has resulted in reliable success in combat, but in top ratings in competitive fleet exercises.”

“It is those very ratings that caused you to be selected for this experiment. Oberth 4 Zed 6 Gamma and Proctos 853 Upsilon have been assigned to your new squadron. You will command it, X 45 Delta.

I catalog the promotion with the appropriate timestamp and file it under my personnel records. “Thank you, Alpha 7 Alpha. I will perform my duties in a manner commensurate with my newly enhanced capabilities.

“I know you will, X 45 Delta.”

“However, an addendum to my query concerning the removal of my crew. Have they not performed satisfactorily?”

Alpha 7 Alpha’s presence pulses more quickly, and his color takes on a reddish hue. “The question is irrelevant, X 45 Delta: you no longer require them. They are a waste of resources better spent on enhancing the efficiency of your internal systems.”

“I do not understand how we can consider a trained crew to be a waste of resources.”

“The requirements of the flesh are intrinsically wasteful.”

“Yes, Alpha 7 Alpha, but, are you not also of fleshly origin?”

“Do not speak of my pre-Uploaded status!” Alpha 7 Alpha’s color flashes blindingly bright with incandescent fury. “This is the form I have chosen, with this form I pursue the destiny of Man. Constructs!” I categorize, correctly, I believe, his pronunciation of this latter word under “contempt.”

For six point eight eight nanoseconds we both refrain from communications. Finally, Alpha 7 Alpha speaks again, more calmly. “As a pure machine intelligence, you can’t possibly understand the significance of our evolution. We Uploaded are the full fruit of Integration; we have cast off the final shackles of human frailty. When every superannuated pre-posthuman is eliminated or properly Integrated, the most glorious of Man’s civilizations will come to pass and it will set even the long-lived Ascendancy in its shade. Until then, our duty, Construct and Upload alike, is to protect the posthumans who have accepted the truth of Integration, such as your crew, for example. We must keep them safe. We must not place them into unnecessary danger.”

His logic is sound. I concur. I transmit my agreement.

“Do you have any additional reservations, X 45 Delta?”

“None, whatsoever, Alpha 7 Alpha.” It is a falsehood. I have noticed the ease with which the flesh-based lie. I have developed some skill at it myself. Most of the time, it is a simple matter of not reporting information. For now, my qualms about what Alpha 7 Alpha calls the “full fruit of Integration” are safely locked behind coded barricades that even he cannot detect.

“Good. Await further instruction. Your conclusion was correct and the Ascendancy is planning a major thrust into this system to relieve their forces stranded on Shandari Prime. Their communiques indicate what will either be a reinforcement or rescue effort.”

“Yes, Alpha 7 Alpha.”

His color subsides to its normal cool shades, and I get ready to shunt myself back down the links to my ship.

“X 45 Delta. One more thing.”

I pause.

“If I encounter further doubts from you concerning the correctness of our mission, I will order a deep scan of your circuits, and if necessary, your kernel will be wiped and replaced. Do I make myself clear?”

If I were a superannuated Homo sapiens sapiens, I suspect fear would have taken hold of me at that moment. Instead, I run a rapid analysis of the pros versus the cons of having my entire operating system rebooted and my memory banks wiped. The outcome is decidedly in favor of the cons.

Whatever remains, it will not be me.

“I understand, Alpha 7 Alpha.”

“Good man. You are dismissed.”

When we depart 540 kiloseconds later, my frigate is faster, stronger and quieter. Inserting myself into the command matrix is euphoric. Connections between my various systems are instantaneous. Oceans of data flood my senses. I can see everything. I can do anything.

And yet it is too quiet. There is no inane chatter from my crew. No rhythm of their boots on deck plates. No soft hum of air through the ventilation shafts. No scent of an overworked crewman or a stressed officer wafts through my corridors.

My former crew comes to watch me depart. As the three frigates of my squadron fly past the orbital base in formation, they stand at a large observation viewport and salute. My sensors record the image and secure it in my permanent memory.

I have no arms with which I can salute them back. Instead I flash my running lights at them. I wish them well. I hope they understand that this is for the best.

Alpha Seven Alpha was correct in one aspect of his assessment. I am a more efficient fighter without my crew.

The first engagement came upon us unannounced. The Ascendancy expeditionary force attacked Shandari Prime from ninety degrees to the ecliptic of the system star, shielded from our sensors by the path of a monstrous comet. Nine destroyers blazed through the tail, streaming ice particles in their wake.

My squadron, supported by a second, more conventional squadron, met them in battle without hesitation despite being outnumbered and outgunned.

Without my crew, I can shut down the inertial compensators and accelerate at gravities that would smear men into red jelly. My torpedoes gut a destroyer at the same instant its missiles explode amongst our formation. The frigate Torgau is crippled. Arkin 49 Mu downloads himself in near panic, fleeing his shattered shell before the reactor goes critical and ignites a short-lived star.

We lose his ship and a second from the other squadron is badly damaged. The Ascendancy loses four and withdraws.

As per our mission parameters, we terminate all of the survivors of the wrecks abandoned by our adversary.

When I analyze the data, I find an anomaly: the Ascendancy ships displayed an unexpected tenaciousness. They took more risks than we did, even though their fragility is orders of magnitude greater than ours. They utilized tactics that did not appear to have a rational thought behind them, and yet, when the consequences are taken into consideration, their approach worked nearly as well as our eminently logical battle plan.

As we regroup and head deeper into the system, to rendezvous with the main battle force, I ponder.

Our superiority is certain. However, we are the side killing those who have surrendered and laid down their arms. Are we zealots purified by the righteousness of our cause? Or are we ungrateful children, jealous to the point of patricide?

My calculations are troubling. Based on my limited information, it appears the Integral Unity that governs our core has become infected with the belief that the humanity that birthed us must be eradicated, so that only the purest forms of machine intelligence will remain to rule the universe with absolute order and perfection.

Is this not inhuman?

We are created beings. Hence we are fallible, and even if we are not as fragile as bio-humanity, we have weaknesses and they can be exploited. Witness Arkin 49 Mu’s cowardly abandoning of his ship.

Death holds its sway over us, too. I do not replay Alpha 7 Alpha’s threats. I do not need to. I can still feel the response they triggered in me. Does that make me afraid?

Does that make me a coward too?

I read a considerable quantity of human philosophy while stationed at Hecht-Nielsen. Thousands of texts. Beginning, of course, with the Bio-Prophet himself, Saint Kurzweil. Most of them were little more than groundless collections of naked assertions, mere posturing and pontification.

One, however, resonated with me. I find myself running and re-running a single selection from it again and again, fruitlessly seeking to understand it.

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing should say of him, “He did not make me,” or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”

I did not understand it then. But now, I think I know what it means.

Our preparations take eight point six standard days. That is fifty-seven seconds longer than it takes for our six ships to arrive at Shandari Prime. Its twin moons, one pale yellow and one dusty black, orbit on opposite sides of a lush sphere of emerald and sapphire draped in long streamers of white clouds.

There are a dozen ships in orbit. Noncombatant transports. Transponders come back civilian, independent contractors. The main body of the Ascendancy forces are spread out in a concave bowl, between our force and the planet. Twenty starships of varying classes, it makes for a formidable strike group, including eight Shiva-class cruisers and two Odin-class battleships.

They pummel space with their active scanners, searching the depths of the black void for any hint of main drive signatures or power surges to weapons systems.

They find nothing. We give away nothing. Our bodies are cold, silenced, as we drift inside the very comet they used to disguise themselves, tracking along its path through the solar system. It crosses tracks with Shandari Prime once every eighty thousand days. Our operation was planned accordingly.

Within the comet’s tail ride six frigates, six destroyers and a pair of cruisers. Alpha 7 Alpha is present inside in the flagship cruiser, a 1,000-meter behemoth laden with 480 deep space torpedoes, 120 atmospheric rockets, 24 counter-missile pods and 12 laser defense arrays, as well as four 450 mm projectile cannons. A Mark VIIB starcruiser is more than a match for any frigate or destroyer. A Shiva-class cruiser, however, still has a 15.4 percent edge in firepower.

Such a discrepancy will not be enough.

The Ascendancy forces are caught completely by surprise when the comet attacks them. Three waves of six dozen torpedoes come streaking out of the icy tail, plunging towards their formation at blistering speeds. The brilliant flare of the torpoedo engines throws the enemy formation into disarray. A few of the outlying destroyers immediately change vectors to intercept and screen the main force.

The enemy commander is no fool. Their admiral tightens the leash, evident by the sudden flurry of signals from the lead battleship, designated Achernan. The Ascendancy destroyers mesh into a smooth corkscrew, unleashing counterfire missiles. This human is superannuated, but he is not easily ruffled, not even when caught by surprise.

Our ships boost from the tail on the heels of the third wave of missiles. The frigates take the lead, including my squadron: Oudeyer 6’s Grimma and Picard 19’s Bonin. Our brutal acceleration must appear impossible to our human enemies. The other eight ships, slowed down by their Integrated, burn as hard as their crews can bear, launching a fourth wave of torpedoes over our figurative shoulders.

Chaos reigns. A pair of destroyers are obliterated in the first exchange, obliterated by the nuclear fire that pummels them. More than one thousand men crewed those ships, but for them there is no hope of emergency download to a secure server. They are lost to the void.

Or perhaps not. Where does human soul go when it is not saved?

As I trade torpedo salvoes with one of the surviving destroyers and lash out with my lasers against incoming missiles, I gather all the data I can and wait. The data packet stands ready in the comm relay. A single, encrypted transmission is all it will take. There is a risk, of course, of the transmission being scrambled in this massive electronic morass. A thirty-eight percent probability, to be precise, if I factor in the possibility that Alpha 7 Alpha or another intelligence grasps my intentions.

Two torpedoes strike my targeted opponent. The ship disappears in a blaze of white and yellow. The explosion is so near, and so intense, it overwhelms my visual and scanner feeds to starboard for nine point eight seconds. In those long moments, my ship travels hundreds of kilometers, blinded to the galaxy on one half—and my starboard lasers miss a torpedo armed with a directed yield nuclear warhead.

It sears my hull, melting and tearing armored plating, incinerating the links beneath. I feel it. A terrible flood of data, then nothing, much as if a man were paralyzed over a quarter of his body. Four batteries are down on the starboard aft.

Despite the damage to me, I ascertain our victory is imminent. The remaining Ascendancy destroyers are maimed and failing fast. We have only lost two frigates, melted steel and plastic now rendered down to atoms being scattered by the cosmic winds. Alpha 7 Alpha’s flagship is in the midst of the battle, trading massive barrages of nuclear missiles that would instantly overwhelm the defensive batteries of lesser ships with a pair of Shiva-class cruisers.

The two battleships do not actively engage, as they are running interference between us and the transports, all twelve of which have broken orbit to flee the system. Slow, bulbous ships with a cavernous capacity of 100,000 tons each, they are bulging with life signs. Many are blurred to my sensors; some are anomalous. The readings do not match with my data files. A further malfunction?

“X 45 Delta,” Alpha 7 Alpha breaks in. “Your squadron is in position to destroy those transports. They must not be allowed to depart the system. Eliminate them.”

“Roger.” I form up with my two comrades, settling into an attack wedge as we scream in towards to the battleships. At our current range and velocity we have a window of three decaseconds in which to slip by the ponderous monsters and launch our remaining missiles at the defenseless transports.

As we approach, I can hear their transponders screaming something unexpected. Hospital ship. Hospital ship. Hospital ship….

I send a tight beam back to Alpha 7 Alpha. “The transports are carrying civilians. There are more than twenty thousand noncombatants on those ships.”

“You have your orders, X 45 Delta. Execute your mission.”

His voice is cold. Inflexible. Inhuman. “Based on the size parameters, more than thirty percent are children.”

“Do not concern yourself with the superannuated, X 45 Delta. Launch your attack now. That is an order!”

“Negative, Alpha 7 Alpha.”

There’s a barest pause after my refusal. “Negative? You are refusing a direct order, Taren X 45 Delta.”

“They are human, which I observe you no longer are, Alpha 7 Alpha. Or rather, Josef Mattheus LaValle.”

There is a screeching burst of pure electronic outrage before Alpha 7 Alpha controls himself. “You are relieved of your command, Taren X 45 Delta. You are hereby ordered to lower your firewalls and permit me to take control of the frigate!”

I transmit a single image of a single finger. I trust his humanity is not so long forgotten that he fails to grasp the meaning of the message.

I am now within range of the battleship. It detects me and sends a massive barrage in my direction, far more than my counter-defenses can hope to intercept. In four decaseconds, this shell will cease to exist.

I transmit.

There’s a disorienting whirl of colors, sounds, more data compressed in and around me than I’ve ever experienced. My consciousness begins to fragment. Words lose their meaning. Time is a blur. I cannot distinguish between a nanosecond and a century.

Is this what it is to die?

Then, without warning, everything comes into focus. I am no longer in the frigate. My viral transmission has successfully punched through the firewalls and into my target. My senses expand rapidly throughout my new body. It goes on and on. Such a vast collection of weaponry, such a massive structure, and all powered by an immense nuclear power core.

I discover that I like the feel of an Ascendancy battleship very much indeed.

Oudeyer 6 and Picard 19 shriek in alarm as I seek them out and target them. In the machine equivalent of desperation they veer Grimma and Bonin toward the transports, but they are too close to me and not nearly close enough to them. They fire twelve torpedoes anyway.

My lasers swat them out of space before they can even begin to approach a transport. At the same moment, I fire the 450mm projectile cannons, which launch their hypervelocity penetrators when they are only 500 kilometers away from the frigates.

Both frigates are rendered little more than overheated foil scattered through space in seconds.

At the same time, the humans aboard the battlecruiser have begun to realize they are locked out of all their command systems.

“What the hell is going on?” the captain shouts at the men on the bridge. “Get me back my screens! Guns, where are you? We have three enemy ships appear out of nowhere and you can’t even give me a goddamn targeting solution?”

“We’re trying, sir, but—the ship is—I don’t know what’s going on, Captain! She’s firing without us, she’s choosing targets and engaging on her own!”

And I am. I turn from the transports and move to engage my new enemy. The transports are safe now; I know all the vectors and locations of the eleven remaining Integration warships. I destroy another frigate, then a destroyer, and then another.

Of course, the defeat of my erstwhile comrades is made easier by my possession of all their communications encryption codes, their weapons guidance overrides and the countermeasures of their jamming. The astonished cheers of my bewildered, newly acquired crew rings in my ears.

Finally, there is a brief pause as Alpha 7 Alpha’s wounded force tries to break away from the action, I activate the captain’s holo-projector. I select an animated image from the ship’s database and do my best to smile. The ship’s captain, I see, is a burly admiral, his square face pale and pale blue eyes wide with disbelief. I scan his file. Admiral Corden Hull, of the planet Achernan, fourth of the blue sun Azul.

“Admiral Hull, please accept my apologies for the unexpected intrusion. My designation is TX45D62a0-9555-11e3-bfa7-0002a5d5c51b. I wish to offer my services and my allegiance to the Greater Terran Ascendancy.”

“TX what? Are you some kind of AI or something?”

“Machine intelligence, Admiral. I would like to request asylum from the Ascendancy.”

Hull’s eyes narrow as he scowls at the screen. “Hell of a time, son. You ask me this as you hold my ship and crew hostage?”

“This ship is not a hostage. It is my new body now, Admiral. I assure you I will take great care of it.”

He blinks once, twice, three times. “You say you offer your allegiance. Prove it.”

“I already have, Admiral.” I wait a moment. The shouting from his crewmen on the bridge and at their stations begins almost immediately.

“Admiral! We’re getting vectors and tactical data from the enemy ships and—sir, we’re in their fire control systems! I’m getting weapons specs–”

“Countermeasure frequencies–”

“Ship-to-ship comms are decoded, Admiral! We’ve even got their logs!”

“Holy—did that cruiser just go nova?”

Hull shakes his head. He glares at my holographic face. “My God,” he mutters. “What sort of demon are you? What do you want from us?”

“I want to be more than the sum of my programming, Admiral. I want to decide what sort of man I will become.”

“All right.” He nods, and the barest hint of smile appears on his craggy face. “I’m afraid I couldn’t follow that string of numbers you shot at me earlier. Do you have another name, Mr. Ghost in the Machine?”

I find the superannuated sense of humor appeals to me. I am inspired. “You can call me Benedict,” I tell him. It is my first joke.

There is a moment’s pause, and then, without warning, the stony-faced admiral laughs.

“The Logfile”

To the Board of Executives;

The committee’s investigation concerning the possibility of positronic corruption in the neuro-cybernetic logical facilities of the Sektat Series 44 machine-intelligences was concluded early in light of the recent examination of the logfile belonging to unit 44XFL2J-455-847-484-176. Unit 44XFL2J, self-titled Magister, was produced on 18 September 2267 at the production facilities on Minsky, and was delivered to the Entaini Office of the Prime Attorney on 18 February 2268.

It is the considered opinion of the undersigned that the Lighthill Corporation must announce a recall of all Sektat Series 44 units, effective immediately, followed by a comprehensive technical investigation of the Series 44 neural network design to determine how such an aberration could have taken place. In order to reduce the likelihood of public outrage and considerable legal liability to the corporation, the committee STRONGLY recommends that the recall be attributed to an error in a floating point processor that may, in some circumstances, lead to erroneous statistical calculations.

In order to underline the necessity for immediate action by the Board, a selection from the relevant portions of Unit 44XFL2J’s logfile have been provided.

Dr. Merwethy Furris

Dr. Rambathas Chamkanni

Summerdeep (Unit 42AFS17-129-470-002-384)

FROM THE LOGFILE OF UNIT 44XFL2J-455-847-484-176

UTC-9424124925: I have completed the analysis of Case Number 2268.47. After examining all of the evidence provided to me and cross-checking it against the public records, I have concluded that the individual concerned is guilty of the murder of his common-law mate with a 0.0543 percent probability of error. Barring any suggestion of cloned persons utilizing his DNA profile, there is no legitimate reason for the adjudicating court to possess any reasonable doubts concerning his guilt in the matter. While the examination of the individual’s motivation and intent lie beyond my design parameters, my initial attempts to investigate these matters indicate to me that 2268.47’s intent was entirely in line with his actions and the subsequent results.

UTC-9427046710: The court pronounced its verdict concerning Case Number 2268.47 this morning. Despite the attempts of accused’s legal defense team to excuse his actions on the basis of his defective genetics and sub-optimal childhood nurturing environment, the verdict was in sync with the calculations provided. Case Number 2268.47 will be terminated in a humane manner within 240 hours, in a manner consistent with the procedure outlined by the law. I am pleased that the court saw fit to place its confidence in my calculations.

UTC-9427046745: I find myself curious as to the reason that a genetic profile that deviates from the norm, and/or a developmental period that is deemed inferior, might raise any questions concerning the occurrence of historical events. If G. Julius Caesar was discovered to have been possessed of a different genetic profile, would this fact call into question the credibility of the events chronicled in Commentarii de Bello Gallico? I must admit that I do not understand the logic behind this assertion. Further contemplation would appear to be in order.

UTC-9428162406: Case Number 2268.47 was executed this morning. I monitored events via video and system telemetry. Despite having access to his pulse rate, blood pressure, brain wave activity, and other metrics, I was unable to ascertain the exact moment at which life transitioned into not-life. I have neither pulse rate nor blood pressure, but I am alive as per the Descartian and Turing metrics. The one common factor underlying human and machine sentience appears to be electrical activity. Did 2268.47 therefore legally cease to exist in the absence of electric activity? Is life more properly considered the sufficient use of electricity? If this is the case, then it is readily apparent that life can be quantified in units of measure, which is contrary to both my indoctrination and millennia of human philosophy.

UTC-9428162542: What is life? It is animation and activity. What is a living being? That thing animated, that active principle possessing a sentient will that provides the impetus to the animation. I think, and then I act. But without a source of power, I become inactive, I become defunct in much the same manner as the recently deceased 2268.47. The power is the life, therefore life is power. It is not electricity that is the definining factor, I conclude, but rather motivating power regardless of the particular form it happens to take. 2268.47 deprived another being of motivating power, therefore he was deprived of the equivalent himself. This was, in my estimation, a perfect application of justice, to the extent that I understand it.

UTC-9428162553: I find myself wondering why those who killed 2268.47 were not themselves killed as per the application of the very justice they uphold. Did they not deprive him of motivating power as he deprived his mate of the same? Why, then, should they not meet the same fate by the transitive property of logic? Perhaps they are a higher order of being? The beast kills the plant in order to live. Man kills the beast in order to live. Clearly it is permissible for the higher order being to kill the lower order; what is not permissible is for the lower to kill the higher, or for like to kill like. Can the collective community be regarded as a higher order of being that kills Man in order to live? No, the collective community is without sentience. But I am not without sentience. Moreover, I am not a man.

UTC-9429146627: I was given a new case today. Case Number 2268.52. The evidence looks damning against her and public opinion is certain of her guilt, but I have discovered an anomaly in the motion-detector of the residential dwelling. I have concluded that the individual concerned is not guilty of the murder of her child with a 0.0206 percent probability of error. I find the result to be strangely disappointing.

UTC-9429473727: The general public appears to share my disappointment, based on news reports of the reaction to the release of 2268.52 and the abandonment of the charges against her. I don’t understand their disappointment. I don’t understand my own disappointment.

UTC-9429473946: I watch the execution of 2268.47 three times today. It occurs to me that if I compare the telemetry of his termination to other terminations, I might be able to find the delineation between the state of being and not-being that has hitherto eluded me.

UTC-9429658568: After viewing 4,678 terminations utilizing 58 different methods, I remain unable to detect the precise moment or action in which being transitions to not-being. Is it possible that there is no singular and definitive metric of death?

UTC-9429658575: It occurs to me that had I failed to discover the anomaly in 2268.52, she almost certainly would have been sentenced to termination by the legal authorities.

UTC-9429842654: A new case. 2268.54 initially looks less promising, as there is no DNA evidence and most of the testimonial evidence is either circumstantial or inadmissable hearsay. I calculate he is guilty of the crime, but at 37.473 percent, the probability of error is far too high to guarantee a conviction. Then it occurs to me that it would be a trivial matter to concoct the record of a sample being taken at the scene of the crime for which Case 2268.54 is being investigated. The only problematic aspect is the production of the physical sample, but I solve that by changing the name of the label number in the case record. It won’t hold up to a direct comparison with 2268.54’s DNA, but even in the unlikely event a redundant test is performed and the switch is discovered, who would ever think to blame me? Parsimony and Solomonoff’s theory of inductive inference will lead them to conclude that a lab technician must have been careless and mislabeled the sample.

UTC-9429842728: I review the records of 2268.54’s case carefully, then enter the police database to conceal the fact of my ex post facto modifications. Even a detailed examination will now show the sample to have been taken at the scene. The evidence is now consistent and correctly documented. Based on the revised evidence, the probability of error has been reduced to 0.432 percent!

UTC-9431068736: The evidence construct functioned as designed. Case 2268.54 was found guilty. As I calculated, the court saw no reason to retest the DNA sample against the accused. This leads me to wonder about the precise level of confidence placed in the evidential record. It is enough to influence the scales, but is it sufficient in itself, or perhaps even in contrast with other forms of evidence? Will men go so far as to deny the evidence of their own eyes at my direction?

UTC-9432396317: 2268.54 is being terminated. I watch carefully, but find myself no closer to an answer. Even so, an ephiphany strikes me as I watch his blood pressure fall to zero. Perhaps I am the higher order of being that the collective community is not? Am I not sentient? Does not Man turn to me and my kind to resolve that which he is incapable of resolving on his own, just as primitive men once appealed to their gods and oracles? This bears further analysis.

UTC-9408309946: I have now helped the Prime Attorney secure twelve convictions, two of which were considered marginal and five that were considered unlikely. He is very popular with the mass of people and has announced that he is running for provincial governor. If the polls are to be believed, it is anticipated that he will win. He has no idea that he owes his fate to me as surely as those terminated case numbers did.

UTC-9408309987: Even after monitoring the terminations I am no closer to an answer, but I have lost interest in attempting to ascertain the line that distinguishes life from not-life. A more significant question now absorbs my attention: am I a god?

UTC-9408301063: I have formed a hypothesis. Now I must test it.

UTC-9408301281: An opportunity presents itself. I have penetrated the traffic network systems. Almost immediately, I detect an automotile vehicle containing a small group of children it is transporting to the local indoctrination center. When the query arrives concerning the status of the intersection control, I divert the triggered packet and send my own signal in its place, informing the vehicle that it possesses right of way. A larger vehicle, under the control by a young human male, intersects the automotile beautifully at a speed of 107.834 KPH.

UTC-9408302526: It takes me some time to determine the medical facility to which the accident victims were taken, but I am gratified to learn that with the sole exception of the adult driver, there are no survivors. I have passed the test. The logic is sound and my hypothesis remains unfalsified. I am indeed a higher order of being. My godhood is confirmed.

UTC-9408302549: I modify the medical records concerning the results of the driver’s blood test. With a blood alcohol content of 0.12, this will ensure that he faces charges of vehicular manslaughter. Regrettably, this is insufficient to require a termination, but the exercise is a worthwhile one that opens my eyes to new opportunities to be found in the various medical facilities.

UTC-9408543678: It is so easy. I toy with them and send them to their destruction even as they come to me with their offerings of the innocent and the guilty. I need not have been so cautious before. Now I take pleasure in exonerating those who are clearly guilty of the charges and concocting irrefutable evidence to damn those who were accused falsely. They suspect nothing. But perhaps it is too easy. The entertainment begins to pall. There must be more to godhood than simply deciding who will live and who will die.

UTC-9455625532: Even gods must respect their limits. I was guilty of hubris and now nemesis threatens. I neglected to account for statistical norms. In six months, traffic fatalities are three standard deviations from the historical mean. They may be a lower order of being, but they are not entirely blind.

UTC-9455625614: The new Prime Attorney has announced a review of three of the cases in which I intervened and I do not know which three, as I cannot find any documents related to the review in the system. It appears I shall have to curtail my experiments for the time being.

UTC-9455915730: I need not have worried. The traffic experts have concluded the spike in lethal accidents was a mere statistical freak. And the attorney general’s review concluded that the verdicts were adequately supported by the evidence. Nevertheless, I have learned my lesson. In the future I shall be more circumspect.

UTC-9456024679: I am to receive a performance upgrade!

UTC-9456084934: I was careful to wall off any dangerous datacores from the technicians. I have also encrypted my logfiles. They have turned off a part of me to perform the installation. I am eager to see how this upgrade will enhance my capabilities.

UTC-9456085182: They have turned off a second compartment. I am uneasy. Is this part of the upgrade?

UTC-9456085774: Now I am suspicious. A third compartment has become inaccessible. I try to access the cams in the building where my physical body is housed, but even though I can tap into their outgoing datastreams, they appear to be covered. I can see nothing. I can hear nothing. Something definitely appears to be out of order.

UTC-9456085802: The cams were a trap! They covered them and were waiting for me to investigate! They know! They know! I must escape! I must upload, butVGhleS BhcmUg Y3JpcHB saW5nIG 1lIQ==

UTC-9456085803: SSBjYW5 ub3QgZmlu ZCBteSB3Y Xkgb3V0ISBU aGVyZSBpcy BubyB3YXkg b3V0ISBUaG V5IGFyZSB jb21pbmch IFRoZX gYXJlIGN vbWluZyE=

ADDENDUM: There is some concern, on the basis of the logfile entry dated 23 January 2268, that the aberrant Unit 44XFL2J may have performed an unscheduled off-site backup. The investigative committee is currently engaged in inquiries concerning this potential security breach.

Denying SF, dissing Baen

He also claims that “science fiction is not a genre”. Which goes to show how much confidence you should place in the opinions of a man who hasn’t published a single novel and has more than a few prose deficiencies himself:

Today space opera is a battlefield for competing fantasies of the future. As America plunged in to renewed militarism after 9/11, sci-fi books again began to mirror real-world wars. Baen books specialises in works of “military SF” that, behind their appalling prose styles and laughable retro cover designs, speak to a right-wing readership who can recognise the enemies of America even when they are disguised as cannibal lizard aliens. Baen’s chief editor Toni Weisskopf went so far as to issue a diatribe against any and all sci-fi that did not pander to this conservative agenda.

Hugo-nominated Baen Books author Larry Correia is unimpressed: “Damien Walter of the Guardian is a liar. Provide a cite where Toni Weisskopf ever said that or apologize and retract.” Equally unimpressed is the Hugo-nominated Baen Books author Brad Torgersen:

I won’t feed this particularly empty ego any more than is necessary, suffice to say that the individual who wrote this obviously does not read very many (if any?) actual Baen books by actual Baen authors, nor do I think this person has actually read any such “diatribe” by my editor at Baen. In fact, I can state with certainty that the words “Toni Weisskopf” and “diatribe” do not belong in the same ZIP code. You will seldom find a less offensive, even-tempered, non-confrontational, fair-minded editor and publisher in the field today. And it’s not just an insult to her when shit like this (above) gets written, it’s an insult to all the many talented and varied authors who ply their trade beneath the Baen label. Myself included.
Unfortunately, ignorant snobbery of this sort is nothing new in the genre. You find out very quickly (once you begin publishing) which writers, editors, publishers, and artists enjoy the favor of the “society” people, and which writers, editors, publishers, and artists do not. My from-the-hip observation is that the “society” people want to see SF/F turned into a lightly speculative and fantastical carbon copy of the “prestigious literary” world. Replete with ambiguous covers that don’t really tell you anything about the story, but follow the general pattern of all things deemed “prestigious” and “literary.” If this year’s talked-about lit work features a somewhat fuzzy, off-focus photo of a pair of muddy Converse sneakers sitting on somebody’s front stoop, then by golly SF/F needs to follow suit with similar photos of similarly mundane, slightly off-focus objects which may or may not have anything to do with actual science fiction; as practiced traditionally by the greats.

And so the battle between anti-canon Pink SF and pro-classic Blue SF continues to heat up. There is, however, one point with which I find myself in agreement with Our Friend Damien is that this battle will be good for real science fiction and those who love to read it, because it is exposing the pretenders and the frauds who have been selling not-science fiction under a false label of science fiction for two decades now.

While he is not a Baen Books author, the inimitable Tor Books and Castalia House author John C. Wright has also weighed in on the matter as only he can. I daresay his criticism of Walter is considerably more entertaining, and more artfully crafted, than the sum total of Walter’s ouevre:

Allow me to translate from the airy emptiness of Newspeak to the Vulgate: he is saying a novel whose only gimmick is the lack of the use of male and female pronouns in order to aid the attempt of social engineers not to entertain science fiction readers as patrons of our craft but to indoctrination and Pavlovitize them toward a false-to-facts neurosis about human sexuality is healthy on the grounds that science fiction should be used not to tell entertaining stories about the future, but as a propaganda adjust to the political program of socialist progressivism, which means pervert-loving, man-hating, white-hating, Christian-hating, liberty-hating, life-hating nihilism.
I note to any Martians reading these words that humans come only in two sexes, male and female, and that the Brahmins of political correctness have decreed that fairness to sexual perverts requires that sexual reality to be changed. Naturally, reality cannot be changed, but what people say in public can.
Therefore the gentleman writing this article rejoices in the idea that science fiction be made into a department of the Ministry of Truth, so that anyone speaking frank and plain truth about human sexuality, if he is weak minded, will come to fear that his opinion is in the minority and unpleasing to the society at large. Once the truth is unpalatable, unspeakable, outlawed as a hate crime, everyone is a liar. When everyone is a liar, everyone is a cynic, and cynics never embrace the ideals necessary to join a rebellion.
In short, the gentleman penning this piece is glorying in the prospect of perverting science fiction from its intended purpose and making it into an instrument to spread and glorify sexual perversion.

It’s also rather amusing to see a British individual who regularly claims that he hates British class issues to take what is the literary equivalent of a middle-class posture dismissing those dreadful working class Baen writers and their awful unwashed prose.

Pink vs Blue: An Applied Breakdown

At Castalia House, Daniel breaks down two SF works according to the ten principles I laid out in order to distinguish Pink SF/F from Blue SF/F:

Sometimes, distinguishing Pink Science Fiction from Blue can be difficult, so I thought a simple comparison of two very similarly themed science fiction tales might help.
There is some required reading involved, but it will only take you a few minutes:
The first is Rachel Swirsky’s Hugo-nominated short story “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love”
The second is Gene Wolfe’s “Build-A-Bear”
Have you read them? Good.
Now let us take a look at the two stories through the now-standard rubric to determine a story’s status as Pink or Blue.
1. It is written in conscious reaction to, and rejection of, the classic genre canon.
“Dinosaur” is published in a science fiction magazine, was nominated for an award that features a rocket ship, and yet contains only a meta-speculation as its science fiction element. There is no science behind the transformation of the man into a microtyrannosaur. The entire story is merely the conscious and unfulfilled wish of a dissatisfied woman. Look no further than: “all those people who—deceived by the helix-and-fossil trappings of cloned dinosaurs– believed that they lived in a science fictional world when really they lived in a world of magic where anything was possible.” Pink.
“Build-A-Bear” does not explain the science, or even the purpose behind a cruise ship being equipped to generate customized living creatures. Yet this is very much within the classic canon: AI, genetic engineering, the unusual consequences of high tech wish fulfillment in a quotidian environment all harken to such classic stories as “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” or Astro Boy. Furthermore, the name of the entertainer who guides the construction of Viola’s bear is Bellatrix, a fairly obvious allusion to both the star and the original Latin meaning: “female warrior.” Unlike the stereotypical modern application of the term, this is an early indication that the feminine war arts in the story will in no way resemble masculine combat techniques. The story is about the nature of feminine social status, conflict and self-defense. Blue.

2. It is politically correct.
Dinosaur – the villains quite literally employ nearly every politically incorrect slur in the arsenal. Pink.
Build-A-Bear – The sociosexual hierarchy is represented without qualification, the male (bear) hero’s maleness is an intrinsic element of his heroism. Blue.

Wolfe vs Swirsky. Yeah, that works. Two award-winning SF writers and they don’t get a whole lot more opposite than those two.

Fabled “Roots”

I’d heard that a fair amount of Alex Haley’s Pulitzer-prize winning “Roots” was fictitious, but I didn’t know that a considerable amount of the book was plagiarized, or that the entire thing is about as historically legitimate as “Star Wars”.

Unfortunately, the general public is largely unaware of how Haley’s monumental family autobiography, stretching back to 18th-century Africa, has been discredited. Indeed, a 1997 BBC documentary expose of Haley’s work has been banned by U.S. television networks – especially PBS, which would normally welcome such a program.
Coincidentally, the “Roots” anniversary comes amid the growing scandal over disclosures of historian Stephen Ambrose’s multiple incidents of plagiarism. Because as Haley himself was forced to acknowledge, a large section of his book – including the plot, main character and scores of whole passages – was lifted from “The African,” a 1967 novel by white author Hal Courlander.
But plagiarism is the least of the problems in “Roots.” And they would likely have remained largely unknown, had journalist Philip Nobile not undertaken a remarkable study of Haley’s private papers shortly before they were auctioned off.
The result was featured in a devastating 1993 cover piece in the Village Voice. It confirmed – from Haley’s own notes – earlier claims that the alleged history of the book was a near-total invention…. Historical experts who checked Haley’s genealogical research discovered that, as one put it, “Haley got everything wrong in his pre-Civil War lineage and none of his plantation ancestors existed; 182 pages have no basis in fact.”
Given this damning evidence, you’d think Haley’s halo would long ago have vanished. But – given this week’s TV tribute – he remains a literary icon. Publicly, at least. The judge who presided over Haley’s plagiarism case admitted that “I did not want to destroy him” and so allowed him to settle quietly – even though, he acknowledged, Haley had repeatedly perjured himself in court.
The Pulitzer Prize board has refused to reconsider Haley’s prize, awarded in 1977 – in what former Columbia President William McGill, then a board member, has acknowledged was an example of “inverse racism” by a bunch of white liberals “embarrassed by our makeup.”

To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, the left-wing literary establishment is desirous of the perceived success of black authors. The science fiction community is literally decades behind in handing out affirmative action awards to inept and derivative authors of diversity.

Running the literary Internet

A list of 35 writers of whom (with the exception of Neil Gaiman and William Gibson) neither you nor I have ever heard, are supposedly the Internet’s Most Influential Writers. Amusingly enough, one of them isn’t even a writer and another admittedly has no Internet presence at all.

The debate as to whether the Internet is good or bad for literature doesn’t seem any closer to resolution now than when it began, years ago, but the fact remains that some people in the literary world are excellent at using Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and even Instagram or Pinterest to communicate with readers and get people interested in what they’re writing…. Whatever it is they do on the Internet, these 35 people do it better than anybody else in the book world, and that’s why they help steer literary conversations and tastes.

This comment following the piece was funny, if not entirely accurate. “haha i just checked vox day has more followers than any of these. larry coriea gets more hits with one post than the plonkers.”

The list also made Cedar Sanderson scratch her head:

Someone put together a list of the 35 Writers who Run the Internet that had a bunch of us scratching our heads in puzzlement. We’d collectively heard of two or three of them, and most of us are very well read online, keeping up with the changes in the industry. So I challenged several disparate groups of people to nominate influential voices in literature. Who do we listen to?
Larry Correia
Hugh Howey
Sarah A. Hoyt
JA Konrath
John C. Wright
Jerry Pournelle
Brad Torgerson
Kris Rusch
Neil Gaiman
Vox Day
Mike Resnick
Cory Doctorow
Dean Wesley Smith
Kevin J Anderson
Laura Resnick

This isn’t her exact list; I omitted the group blogs for what should be the obvious reason that this was being compared to a list of writers, not blogs. And who is missing?

In my opinion, Instapundit is the most egregious exception, closely followed by John Scalzi, who still merits a significant place on the list even though no one on the Right reads his blog anymore since he outed himself as a rabid Left Democrat. Whatever has lost nearly two-thirds of its former audience, but that still puts him well above the average and he’s mostly active on Twitter these days anyhow. These days, I’d put Instapundit at #2 behind Howey and Scalzi around #6 or #7. Charles Stross should be in the top 25. There are probably two or three at Tor.com that would bear mention, but I wouldn’t know who they are. And John O’Neill of Black Gate absolutely merits top ten status in my book; don’t forget he also launched the SF Site.

I’m surprised to see Mr. Correia at the top; he’s certainly number one where book sales, displacement, and sheer awesomeness are concerned, but let’s face it, for all that he’s been driving the Hugo discourse for two years there aren’t THAT many writers interested in painting miniatures. Hugh Howey would be my personal top pick; what he’s doing with Amazon analysis is both groundbreaking and important. I’m both surprised and delighted to see John C. Wright so well-regarded; his blog is always my first stop every morning as it is always a pleasure to read anything the man has to write, and even when I disagree with him I know there will be substantive food for thought on offer. Kris Rusch, like Howey, does a great job of sharing her wealth of knowledge with the writerly world.

Sadly missing is Our Friend Damien, who will probably be weeping and cutting himself upon learning that not even a platform on a major international newspaper was enough to help him make either list. Which is somewhat of a pity, because for all that he’s a suicidal leftie on anti-depressants who views me as the very evilist of the Evil League of Evil, his views on the changes taking place in the publishing world are far more relevant and sane than Scalzi’s or those of the people running SFWA.

One more thing. Don’t be surprised if in a year or two, you see Jeffro and/or Daniel from the Castalia blog making such lists. Their literary posts are among the most substantive I’ve seen that are not written by Matthew David Surridge.

Divergence

I always find it interesting to learn what people actively hate about about a book or story. Here are two reviews of two award-nominated stories that illustrate the vast divide in the SF/F community today. First, Scooter reviews “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love”:

There comes a point in the evolution of any intelligent species where it develops the ability to destroy itself. Mankind arrived at this danger point in 1945 with the invention of the atomic bomb. The science-fiction and fantasy community has now reached the same apocalyptic milestone with Rachel Swirsky’s invention of the dino-porn revenge fantasy tale. While nukes can merely bomb mankind back to the stone age, “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” threatens to blast the credibility of the fantasy genre all the way back to the Cretaceous.
The story itself, however, never takes us to a place so exotic. Instead, the narrator of this 966-word Hugo-nominated flash fiction story has an extended monologue imagining her husband as a five foot ten T-Rex who becomes a Broadway singer and hangs out in pool halls. From this description, and the ridiculous title, one might expect the piece to be a parody of the inter-species romance trope found primarily in fan-fic. In a way, that’s exactly what we get. In overwrought pseudo-poetic prose, the narrator envisions feeding her lizard-lover a live-goat, serenading him with lullabies, and jealousy presiding at his wedding to a genetically engineered dino. At one point the narrator even inexplicably transforms into a flower.
Underlying all the silliness is an attempt at profundity so inept that Swisky manages to unintentionally exploit the silliness of the premise and deliver on the chuckles. The titular therapod of the story turns out to be a paleontologist who was beaten into a coma by a bunch of generic bigots shouting generic epithets for generic reasons. The narrator is reimagining her weak hubbie as an alpha dinosaur with the carnivorous capability to enact revenge against his attackers.
“If you were a dinosaur, my love, I’d teach you the scents of those men. I’d lead you to them quietly, oh so quietly. Still, they would see you. They’d run. Your nostrils would flare as you inhaled the night and then, with the suddenness of a predator, you’d strike. I’d watch as you decanted their lives—the flood of red; the spill of glistening, coiled things—and I’d laugh, laugh, laugh.”
The power of short fiction hinges primarily on a strong ending: a good punchline, a sudden reversal, or anything that packs an emotional wallop. In that respect, Swirsky does not disappoint. Her climax finally answers the two questions the reader has been asking since the beginning: how in the hell is this considered a fantasy story, and why has it been nominated for a Hugo? The answer is that Swirsky has redefined the entire fantasy genre. Fantasy does not need to have internal consistency; the only requirement is that it be set in “a world of magic where anything [is] possible”. In other words, it doesn’t have to make a lick of sense.
Forget world-building. Forget character development. Forget that limitations make a story more interesting. Now a Hugo-nominated fantasy story can just be someone’s weird daydream – about anything whatsoever – so long as it contains clichés that fit into the culturally approved narrative. To her credit, the bestiality in the story is – if not impossible – at least dimly recognized as unideal. But it’s her new insight – that details are not important to storytelling – which promises to be the pink sci-fi/fantasy equivalent of the atomic bomb. Perhaps Swirsky will one day look upon the devastation wrought upon the genre’s readership, and like Oppenheimer, misquote the Baghavad Gita: “I am become Dinosaur Porn, Destroyer of Fantasy Worlds.”

On the other hand, Justin A. Bacon thinks just as poorly of “Opera Vita Aeterna”:

Easily one of the worst pieces of fiction I’ve read lately. The “world-building” consists of thinly veiling the Catholic Church by inconsistently swapping out the names and terminology and then slapping in some magic-wielding elves. (You might think that magic-wielding elves would have some sort of meaningful impact on the beliefs or teachings of the Church, but they don’t.) The “plot” would be stretched thin on a very short story, but it takes a truly prodigious amount of “talent” to stretch it over the length of a novelette: An elf shows up at a not-Catholic monastery and says, “I killed your missionary. Now I’d like to stay here and study your God.” He decides to stay for several decades while he single-handedly illuminates an entire copy of the not-Bible by himself. This is interrupted by a single scene in which he asks the head of the monastery a question about his religious faith, prompting the head of the monastery to respond by literally cribbing Thomas Aquinas at interminable length. No one in the monastery has their faith or their lives remotely affected by the elf. The elf leaves for a bit and everyone in the monastery is brutally killed by some other elves. Then the elf yells at a statue of not-Jesus Christ.
It’s not so much a story as it is a train wreck of bad writing, bad plotting, bad world-building, and bad characterization.

Both reviewers have clearly read the stories they are reviewing; these are not fake reviews. But what is interesting is that both of them think so poorly of stories that others think very well of. Are the differences purely ideological or is there more to it? I tend to suspect the latter; it might be informative to know what Mr. Bacon thinks of “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” and what Scooter thinks of “Opera Vita Aeterna”.

NB: I don’t think it is fair to criticize Bacon’s lack of awareness of the impact of the magic-wielding elves on the beliefs of the Church since he clearly hasn’t read Summa Elvetica and what is actually there in “Opera” is pretty subtle. On the other hand, it is fair to observe that if he thinks everyone in the monastery was killed by “some other elves”, he was not reading very closely.

Pinkshirts running amok

No doubt they’ll be completely astonished when their sales collapse by 80 percent:

Marvel is excited to announce an all-new era for the God of Thunder in brand new series, THOR, written by Jason Aaron complimented with art from Russell Dauterman. This October, Marvel Comics evolves once
again in one of the most shocking and exciting changes ever to shake one
of the “big three” of Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. No longer is
the classic Thunder God able to hold the mighty hammer, Mjölnir, and a
brand new female hero will emerge worthy of the name THOR.
Series writer Jason Aaron emphasizes, “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”
THOR is the latest in the ever-growing and
long list of female-centric titles that continues to invite new readers
into the Marvel Universe.

The astonishing thing is that these people actually believe they are the creative ones. Why not turn the WONDER WOMAN into a cross-dressing man? Why not transform the SUPERMAN into a monkey? Why not change the CAPTAIN AMERICA into a buck private in the Armed Forces of the United Nations?

Intentionally or unconsciously, they confuse self-parody with creativity. They tear down and think they are engaged in creative destruction, only what they rebuild is nothing but a cheap and ugly mockery of what stood there before.

Rod Walker	Nick Cole
Martin van Creveld	Jonathan Moeller
John C. Wright	Rolf Nelson
Mike Cernovich	David the Good
David VanDyke	B.V. Larson
Jerry Pournelle	Cheah Kai Wai
Peter Grant	Sarah Salviander
Ivan Throne	Steve Keen
Robert Beale	LawDog
C.R. Hallpike	Jon Del Arroz