Atoms
by Chris Morton
On the heavy door was a computerized pad and the man wiped at the surface, smoothing away the snow. He scratched at the newly formed layer of thin ice.
“Heat!” he said over the high-pitched sound of wind. “Heat, goddammit.” He breathed at the pad, condensing the ice. The man hit at the contraption and finally it lit up. “Heat,” he said, and the pad flickered and buzzed in response.
...
This story appears in the collection Commercial1. To continue reading, click here.
Interview with Dana Schoel (D. R. Schoel)
And Xstersiisterpeeze
Q. So tell us about The Galactic Culinary Society. So far, you’ve released three in the series, and all this year.
DRS: I actually started the first story about three years ago, just for fun, for myself. My day job’s in film and TV (as a screenwriter and editor) … and when the pandemic hit and production was temporarily halted on the show I was working on, I decided to more seriously pursue publishing the Galactic Culinary Society stories. I held back on publishing until I had a few stories ready, so the wait between them wouldn’t be too long.
Xstersi, the alien (who looks like a little squid): Hiya, mind if I join? Anyhow, I’m here. What’s going on? Mmm, uh-huh (reading above) … just three stories so far? What a slow poke! That’s like… uh … three divided by three… uh… one a year? Have you checked what REAL writers are doing on Amazon?! You should have like twenty by now!
DRS: Well, I still have my regular job.
Xstersi: Uh huh. Sure. If you say so.
Q. Okay, then. (And welcome to the interview Xstersi. You can stay as long as you behave!) So, Dana, where did the idea come from? Do you cook yourself, or are you more of an enthusiastic food critic?
DRS: I’ve long wanted to write something about food in space: it seemed like a fun idea with potential. Food’s always been important in my family – something we talk about. I cook myself, but I’m nothing like a pro. That would be my brother, who owned a gourmet restaurant in Texas, and he also does some catering jobs on the side. He’s the Master Chef. I’m more into exploring the ‘culture’ of food. I travel a lot, having been to China many times (my wife is Chinese) and through my documentary TV shows, I’ve travelled to the Arctic and worked with Inuit. I learn a lot about other people when we eat together, plus I like to try new things. What we eat is the basis for our very survival, on a daily basis, though we don’t think much about it. So, I found it could be an interesting way to explore different topics, in the tradition of Sci-Fi that examines social issues and ideas –
Xstersi: Oh, what a load of hogwash! Don’t put me to sleep! The truth is, he gets the stories from me! But then he changes it, so instead of it being all about me who saves the day, there’s this annoying Jeane Oberon female person. What the heck?!
Q. Ha, ha. So Dana, I think I’m right in saying that this is your first sci-fi project, although you’ve been a fan of the genre for a long time?
DRS: That’s right. I grew up on Asimov and Heinlein. Working in film and TV, I’ve never had the budget to do something proper in science fiction. Writing these stories has been very liberating. Plus, I don’t have to worry about production costs.
Xstersi: Yeah, ’cause ideas are cheap. You expect someone to give you a hundred million bucks to make a movie about space food?
Q. Well, you never know! So in the trilogy so far there are a lot of different aliens, planets, worlds and cultures. Have you mapped it all out in note form, or do you simply create as you write?
DRS: The sci fi universe I use for my setting is something I first started when I was 13; that’s over thirty years ago. So, I have lots of notes and things.
Xstersi: What’re you yammering about? It’s all real!
Q. Mmm … Of all the aliens you’ve created, do you have a favourite?
Xstersi: That would be me! Me, me! Right? It’s me? It’s me, isn’t it? … Is it me?
DRS: No comment.
Q. There is an element of comedy in the series. Do you try things out on people first, test the humour?
DRS: Some of the characters just seem to take over and have a life of their own –
Xstersi: Like now?
DRS: – and my process is that if I laugh and then, when I read it back later, I laugh again, it’ll stay in.
Xstersi: So, you’re gonna cut this?
DRS: I also have readers who review the story, including my brother, but so far no one’s commented on removing a joke.
Xstersi: I’d remove this bit.
Q. The three books so far are all of novelette length and I wanted to ask, do you think there’s a future in this type of book? (I know from the last time I was in Japan that over there, books are often divided into bite-sized chunks for reading on the commute, etc.)
DRS: When I first started, I was thinking of publishing in magazines, but the stories kept getting longer than a typical magazine short story.
Xstersi: Translation: he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
DRS: As of now, the stories are available only as ebooks. It’s a good way to get feedback directly from readers. When a complete stranger says they like it, that’s encouraging. My plan is to collect them into a print book later on.
Xstersi: When will that be?
DRS: So far, there are the three novellas. I’ve ideas for a few more stories I’d like to include… wait, who’s asking the questions here?
Q. No problem, no problem. What can you tell us about 3rd Wheel Press?
DRS: It’s an offshoot of my production company, 3Rd Wheel Films. I run it with my wife. We publish some other books, including a book of Chinese poetry we’re working on now.
Xstersi: Zzzz
Q. The covers were all created by the artist Josh Newton. Did you work together on the designs?
DRS: I had a pretty firm idea of how I wanted the covers to look. I scoured the internet for someone who’s aesthetic seemed to embody that (on websites like ArtStation). Josh used to work for Disney. Fortunately, he got my vision and was really into it. We worked closely on the designs. He’d send me mock-ups and illustrations that I’d comment on. I think his art is just fantastic.
Q. Agreed. So as well as being the author of these books, you’re a filmmaker too and quite a successful one. How do the creative processes differ?
Xstersi: Successful? As in making money, that kind of successful? Has the interviewer done any research?
DRS: Film is obviously a collaborative process, a team effort, where producers and other people contribute –
Xstersi: – you mean, interfere, muddle with, and totally wreck whatever pathetic idea you’re working on?
DRS: With film writing, I’ll often get well paid for something that never gets produced, and only a few people will have read it, at the end of the day. Even if I earn less from my Sci-Fi, it’s great when it actually reaches people.
Xstersi: People read your stuff? Uh huh. At least the ebooks don’t waste paper.
Q. Okay, Xstersi. Be nice! So Dana, I’m interested in your work with documenting Inuit culture. However, since this is a sci-fi blog, maybe I should stay on topic – but now the question suddenly arises: In Inuit culture are there any science fiction type myths or legends?
DRS: There was this Czech guy, Jan Welzl, who lived among the Inuit in the 1920s and wrote fabulous stories about Inuit coming from Mars. I’d like to write about him someday. More to the point, I’ve worked with Inuit for over twenty years and the next Galactic Culinary Society story, which I’m working on now, is heavily influenced by those experiences… in particular, their hunting culture. So, Jeane Oberon’s next mission will involve that.
Xstersi: Spoiler alert!
DRS: I’m also creating another Chef Hunter who Jeane will have to compete with, a sort of Kahn to her Captain Kirk. Someone who’s her equal, or even more so. I feel she hasn’t had a proper opponent -
Xstersi: Wha-? What about me?
DRS: - someone who can really defeat her. Someone, who’s her equal in intelligence.
Xstersi: Ok, now you’re just getting insulting. I’m outta here.
Q. Okay, and as a final question, do you have any more sci-fi projects to come? Can we expect more adventures from Jeane Oberon in her work for the Galactic Culinary Society? And how about for Xstersi?
DRS: I have three more stories planned, at least for the first book or print collection: the one I mentioned above, then a final story involving Xstersi’s kidnapping (he’s not here anymore, is he? I wouldn’t want him to hear about that), as well as a prequel story which will establish Jeane’s background a little more. I’ve really enjoyed writing about the Galactic Culinary Society, so we’ll see where it goes from there.
Thanks very much for the interview, Dana (and Xstersi!)
Check out more from The Galactic Culinary Society here
Dana's facebook page is here
You can connect with him on twitter here
And on Goodreads here
Review - Barbarians of the Beyond by Matthew Hughes
Twenty years ago, five master criminals known as the Demon Princes raided Mount Pleasant to enslave thousands of inhabitants in the lawless Beyond. Now Morwen Sabine, a daughter of captives, has escaped her cruel master and returns to Mount Pleasant to recover the hidden treasure she hopes will buy her parents’ freedom.
But Mount Pleasant has changed. Morwen must cope with mystic cultists, murderous drug-smugglers, undercover “weasels” of the Interplanetary Police Coordinating Company, and the henchmen of the vicious pirate lord who owns her parents and wants Morwen returned. So he can kill her slowly…
If you are a fan of Jack Vance you will find plenty here to recognise as Hughes cleverly uses the stories of the Demon Princes saga to create a brand new addition to Vance’s world. However, if you are not familiar with those books, then do not be put off because this tidy little novel works just as well as a stand alone.
Our hero is the escaped slave, Morwen Sabine, once under the thumb of the notorious master criminal and space pirate Hacheem Belloch. The book begins with her re-entering a planet she has not set foot on since childhood, and we see it all through her eyes as the world of Jack Vance begins to form in a fresh perspective mirrored by her own.
Some years have passed since Morwen and her parents were taken from Mount Pleasant. Place names have changed, there are new laws and politics. Morwen arrives as a stranger in a strange land, unfamiliar to the locals and possibly in danger because Mount Pleasant has become a town where strangers are not taken kindly to. But Morwen has her own agenda, one that requires patience. First she needs to re-familiarise herself with Mount Pleasant and gain the people’s trust – and in this biding of her time there is a clever balance between tension and homely comfort as the reader follows her through the paces, living alongside her in this sci-fi world of space politics and local laws.
This book may not push quite so many buttons in terms of excitement and action – it is all there, but in each case things tend to get resolved rather quickly – but the tightly written prose is very commendable, there is no dwelling on backstory and the pace is fairly fast.
If you are after something light and easy to read, then this could be just the thing for you. It is suitable for all ages and you do not have to be familiar with Jack Vance to enjoy it – if you are a fan of Vance however, and have finished the Demon Prince series, then look no further for a highly respectable sequel.
Project Hush
by William Tenn
I guess I'm just a stickler, a perfectionist, but if you do a thing, I always say, you might as well do it right. Everything satisfied me about the security measures on our assignment except one – the official Army designation.
Project Hush.
I don't know who thought it up, and I certainly would never ask, but whoever it was, he should have known better. Damn it, when you want a project kept secret, you don't give it a designation like that! You give it something neutral, some name like the Manhattan and Overlord they used in World War II, which won't excite anybody's curiosity.
But we were stuck with Project Hush and we had to take extra measures to ensure secrecy. A couple of times a week, everyone on the project had to report to Psycho for DD & HA – dream detailing and hypnoanalysis – instead of the usual monthly visit. Naturally, the commanding general of the heavily fortified research post to which we were attached could not ask what we were doing, under penalty of court-martial, but he had to be given further instructions to shut off his imagination like a faucet every time he heard an explosion. Some idiot in Washington was actually going to list Project Hush in the military budget by name! It took fast action, I can tell you, to have it entered under Miscellaneous "X" Research.
Well, we'd covered the unforgivable blunder, though not easily, and now we could get down to the real business of the project. You know, of course, about the A-bomb, H-bomb and C-bomb because information that they existed had been declassified. You don't know about the other weapons being devised – and neither did we, reasonably enough, since they weren't our business – but we had been given properly guarded notification that they were in the works. Project Hush was set up to counter the new weapons.
Our goal was not just to reach the Moon. We had done that on 24 June 1967 with an unmanned ship that carried instruments to report back data on soil, temperature, cosmic rays and so on. Unfortunately, it was put out of commission by a rock slide.
An unmanned rocket would be useless against the new weapons. We had to get to the Moon before any other country did and set up a permanent station – an armed one – and do it without anybody else knowing about it.
I guess you see now why we on (damn the name!) Project Hush were so concerned about security. But we felt pretty sure, before we took off, that we had plugged every possible leak.
We had, all right. Nobody even knew we had raised ship.
* * * * *
We landed at the northern tip of Mare Nubium, just off Regiomontanus, and, after planting a flag with appropriate throat-catching ceremony, had swung into the realities of the tasks we had practiced on so many dry runs back on Earth. Major Monroe Gridley prepared the big rocket, with its tiny cubicle of living space, for the return journey to Earth which he alone would make.
Lieutenant-colonel Thomas Hawthorne painstakingly examined our provisions and portable quarters for any damage that might have been incurred in landing.
And I, Colonel Benjamin Rice, first commanding officer of Army Base No. 1 on the Moon, dragged crate after enormous crate out of the ship on my aching academic back, and piled them in the spot two hundred feet away where the plastic dome would be built.
We all finished at just about the same time, as per schedule, and went into Phase Two.
Monroe and I started work on building the dome. It was a simple pre-fab affair, but big enough to require an awful lot of assembling. Then, after it was built, we faced the real problem – getting all the complex internal machinery in place and in operating order.
Meanwhile, Tom Hawthorne took his plump self off in the single-seater rocket which, up to then, had doubled as a lifeboat.
The schedule called for him to make a rough three-hour scouting survey in an ever-widening spiral from our dome. This had been regarded as a probable waste of time, rocket fuel and manpower – but a necessary precaution. He was supposed to watch for such things as bug-eyed monsters out for a stroll on the Lunar landscape. Basically, however, Tom's survey was intended to supply extra geological and astronomical meat for the report which Monroe was to carry back to Army HQ on Earth.
Tom was back in forty minutes. His round face, inside its transparent bubble helmet, was fish-belly white. And so were ours, once he told us what he'd seen.
He had seen another dome.
"The other side of Mare Nubium – in the Riphaen Mountains," he babbled excitedly. "It's a little bigger than ours, and it's a little flatter on top. And it's not translucent, either, with splotches of different colors here and there – it's a dull, dark, heavy gray. But that's all there is to see."
"No markings on the dome?" I asked worriedly. "No signs of anyone – or anything – around it?"
"Neither, Colonel." I noticed he was calling me by my rank for the first time since the trip started, which meant he was saying in effect, "Man, have you got a decision to make!"
"Hey, Tom," Monroe put in. "Couldn't be just a regularly shaped bump in the ground, could it?"
"I'm a geologist, Monroe. I can distinguish artificial from natural topography. Besides – " he looked up –"I just remembered something I left out. There's a brand-new tiny crater near the dome – the kind usually left by a rocket exhaust."
"Rocket exhaust?" I seized on that. "Rockets, eh?"
* * * * *
Tom grinned a little sympathetically. "Spaceship exhaust, I should have said. You can't tell from the crater what kind of propulsive device these characters are using. It's not the same kind of crater our rear-jets leave, if that helps any."
Of course it didn't. So we went into our ship and had a council of war. And I do mean war. Both Tom and Monroe were calling me Colonel in every other sentence. I used their first names every chance I got.
Still, no one but me could reach a decision. About what to do, I mean.
"Look," I said at last, "here are the possibilities. They know we are here – either from watching us land a couple of hours ago or from observing Tom's scout-ship – or they do not know we are here. They are either humans from Earth – in which case they are in all probability enemy nationals – or they are alien creatures from another planet – in which case they may be friends, enemies or what-have-you. I think common sense and standard military procedure demand that we consider them hostile until we have evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, we proceed with extreme caution, so as not to precipitate an interplanetary war with potentially friendly Martians, or whatever they are.
"All right. It's vitally important that Army Headquarters be informed of this immediately. But since Moon-to-Earth radio is still on the drawing boards, the only way we can get through is to send Monroe back with the ship. If we do, we run the risk of having our garrison force, Tom and me, captured while he's making the return trip. In that case, their side winds up in possession of important information concerning our personnel and equipment, while our side has only the bare knowledge that somebody or something else has a base on the Moon. So our primary need is more information.
"Therefore, I suggest that I sit in the dome on one end of a telephone hookup with Tom, who will sit in the ship, his hand over the firing button, ready to blast off for Earth the moment he gets the order from me. Monroe will take the single-seater down to the Riphaen Mountains, landing as close to the other dome as he thinks safe. He will then proceed the rest of the way on foot, doing the best scouting job he can in a spacesuit.
"He will not use his radio, except for agreed-upon nonsense syllables to designate landing the single-seater, coming upon the dome by foot, and warning me to tell Tom to take off. If he's captured, remembering that the first purpose of a scout is acquiring and transmitting knowledge of the enemy, he will snap his suit radio on full volume and pass on as much data as time and the enemy's reflexes permit. How does that sound to you?"
They both nodded. As far as they were concerned, the command decision had been made. But I was sitting under two inches of sweat.
"One question," Tom said. "Why did you pick Monroe for the scout?"
"I was afraid you'd ask that," I told him. "We're three extremely unathletic Ph.D.s who have been in the Army since we finished our schooling. There isn't too much choice. But I remembered that Monroe is half Indian – Arapahoe, isn't it, Monroe? - and I'm hoping blood will tell."
"Only trouble, Colonel," Monroe said slowly as he rose, "is that I'm one-fourth Indian and even that … Didn't I ever tell you that my great-grandfather was the only Arapahoe scout who was with Custer at the Little Big Horn? He'd been positive Sitting Bull was miles away. However, I'll do my best. And if I heroically don't come back, would you please persuade the Security Officer of our section to clear my name for use in the history books? Under the circumstances, I think it's the least he could do."
I promised to do my best, of course.
* * * * *
After he took off, I sat in the dome over the telephone connection to Tom and hated myself for picking Monroe to do the job. But I'd have hated myself just as much for picking Tom. And if anything happened and I had to tell Tom to blast off, I'd probably be sitting here in the dome all by myself after that, waiting …
"Broz neggle!" came over the radio in Monroe's resonant voice. He had landed the single-seater.
I didn't dare use the telephone to chat with Tom in the ship, for fear I might miss an important word or phrase from our scout. So I sat and sat and strained my ears. After a while, I heard "Mishgashu!" which told me that Monroe was in the neighborhood of the other dome and was creeping toward it under cover of whatever boulders were around.
And then, abruptly, I heard Monroe yell my name and there was a terrific clattering in my headphones. Radio interference! He'd been caught, and whoever had caught him had simultaneously jammed his suit transmitter with a larger transmitter from the alien dome.
Then there was silence.
After a while, I told Tom what had happened. He just said, "Poor Monroe." I had a good idea of what his expression was like.
"Look, Tom," I said, "if you take off now, you still won't have anything important to tell. After capturing Monroe, whatever's in that other dome will come looking for us, I think. I'll let them get close enough for us to learn something of their appearance – at least if they're human or non-human. Any bit of information about them is important. I'll shout it up to you and you'll still be able to take off in plenty of time. All right?"
"You're the boss, Colonel," he said in a mournful voice. "Lots of luck."
And then there was nothing to do but wait. There was no oxygen system in the dome yet, so I had to squeeze up a sandwich from the food compartment in my suit. I sat there, thinking about the expedition. Nine years, and all that careful secrecy, all that expenditure of money and mind-cracking research – and it had come to this. Waiting to be wiped out, in a blast from some unimaginable weapon. I understood Monroe's last request. We often felt we were so secret that our immediate superiors didn't even want us to know what we we were working on.
Scientists are people – they wish for recognition, too. I was hoping the whole expedition would be written up in the history books, but it looked unpromising.
* * * * *
Two hours later, the scout ship landed near the dome. The lock opened and, from where I stood in the open door of our dome, I saw Monroe come out and walk toward me.
I alerted Tom and told him to listen carefully. "It may be a trick – he might be drugged …"
He didn't act drugged, though – not exactly. He pushed his way past me and sat down on a box to one side of the dome. He put his booted feet up on another, smaller box.
"How are you, Ben?" he asked. "How's every little thing?"
I grunted. "Well?" I know my voice skittered a bit.
He pretended puzzlement. "Well what? Oh, I see what you mean. The other dome – you want to know who's in it. You have a right to be curious, Ben. Certainly. The leader of a top-secret expedition like this – Project Hush they call us, huh, Ben – finds another dome on the Moon. He thinks he's been the first to land on it, so naturally he wants to –"
"Major Monroe Gridley!" I rapped out. "You will come to attention and deliver your report. Now!" Honestly, I felt my neck swelling up inside my helmet.
Monroe just leaned back against the side of the dome. "That's the Army way of doing things," he commented admiringly. "Like the recruits say, there's a right way, a wrong way and an Army way. Only there are other ways, too." He chuckled. "Lots of other ways."
"He's off," I heard Tom whisper over the telephone. "Ben, Monroe has gone and blown his stack."
"They aren't extraterrestrials in the other dome, Ben," Monroe volunteered in a sudden burst of sanity. "No, they're human, all right, and from Earth. Guess where."
"I'll kill you," I warned him. "I swear I'll kill you, Monroe. Where are they from – Russia, China, Argentina?"
He grimaced. "What's so secret about those places? Go on! - guess again."
I stared at him long and hard. "The only place else –"
"Sure," he said. "You got it, Colonel. The other dome is owned and operated by the Navy. The goddam United States Navy!"
This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
February 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
William Tenn is one of the masters of sci-fi. If you are unfamiliar with his work, check out the amazon page here and his Wikipedia page here.
This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).
Seeds
by
Pamela Zero
Jeela held his mother’s hand tightly and squinted into the sky. “I can’t see them, Mommy! Where are they?”
“Patience, honey,” replied Suelsi. “They have to go to the capital first. They’ll be here soon.”
The little boy hopped in place, twisting and turning while holding fast to his parent’s hand. He was dressed in an intricately embroidered tunic with a rainbow of colors stitched into delicate globe shapes. His mother wore a simple white smock and had threaded a white ribbon through her dark hair. They were standing in the town square, surrounded by their friends and neighbors, all of them creating a wild palette of bright colors and white.
“There! There’s one! Is that one?” the boy shouted.
A murmur swept through the crowd, as a few distant, feathery spheres appeared high up in the sky. They rolled overhead, followed by more, until the sky was full of tumbling balls of gossamer. Their paths seemed erratic, but it was clear they were slowly descending, closer and closer.
“They’re here! The Friss are here! Mommy, where are the seeds?” Jeela looked around frantically, and then saw the bundle of sticks topped with seed heads his mother was offering him. “Thanks!” He waved the stalks wildly above his head as his mother lifted him up and sat him on her shoulders. Around them, others were doing the same. In a few moments, the square was filled with bright colors atop white shoulders, with every child clutching their seeds and waving with all their might.
“Thank you!”, shouted Jeela. “Thank you! We are grateful! Thank you!” He glanced around to see his friend from next door a few shoulders over. “Loeter!”
Loeter grinned at him and waved his seeds.
This was the second year that Jeela had come to the square to offer seeds to the Friss. His older sister used to come too, and stand on a chair to get high enough, but she said she was too grown up for that now. Jeela loved wearing his special tunic and shaking the seeds. He especially enjoyed the shouting. Most of the time his mom told him to use his inside voice. Sometimes she said that even when he was outside.
Today he got to shout all he wanted. The louder the better, so the Friss would hear his gratitude. His teacher had said that a while ago everyone all around the world was very sick. Just one Friss had come over from the planet next door and dropped medicine that made people better. Jeela thought that was pretty far away to come all by yourself, even if you were a Friss and had a spaceship. That one Friss saved everyone from dying, but it got too tired after all that work and it died.
He waved his arm faster as he noticed a Friss rolling near him. It dipped closer and he saw the snowflake pattern of its spokes, and the dense area in the center where its brain was. He tried to shout but all that came out was a whisper. “Thank you.” He held out his seeds and the Friss extended a spoke slowly. The end of the spoke curled around the seeds and stripped them off the stalks. Jeela watched in awe as the Friss stored the seeds in its center, then puffed out a small cloud towards him. For a moment, the air smelled like flowers and rain and then the Friss was gone, tumbling up and over back into the sky.
“Mommy! Mommy I did it! I gave it the seeds!”
“Well done, Jeela! Did you say thank you?” Suelsi patted his legs.
“I did but I wasn’t very loud.” He frowned.
“I’m sure it heard you honey. Alright, should we stay for a bit more or do you want to go home and have lunch?”
“Lunch!” Jeela wiggled as his mother lifted him down. He dropped the leftover sticks on the ground as he took his mother’s hand.
The mourners bounced through the atmosphere, buffeted by high altitude winds as they tumbled towards the planet’s surface. There were thousands of them. Gionsly was a peaceful planet, with just one, fairly small, continent. The Friss had made this pilgrimage for years now, ever since their neighboring planet had been struck by a plague. Their fellow Friss, Sll, had taken it upon itself to help, but the cost had been too high. It had died, spokes broken, after scattering the cure it made from its own body into the continental air currents.
The beings that it saved were grateful, and had put up a statue of Sll in their capital city. The statue showed it hale and whole, spokes unbent. At the base was a plaque that blew air scented with the clean, clear smell of Frissian flowers.
Every year this pilgrimage was made. Finding the statue of Sll, was easy. Paying respects was simple, as was layering the scents of the forest around the capital city so Sll’s spirit could rest. The difficult part was visiting the saved beings themselves. They moved quickly and erratically. They didn’t seem to use their sense of smell and their own odors were somewhat difficult to parse. Nonetheless, honor must be shown to those who sacrifice, so the Friss came every year to mourn Sll in the company of the beings it had saved.
This year was Wrr’s first pilgrimage. It was worried. What if it got lost? What if it got hit by one of the lumpy beings? They moved so fast. Wrr focused and made sure to keep up with its group as they layered the smell of fresh moss around the bushes in the capital city. After a while it smelled the scent in the air that signaled the tour of the villages. Wrr rose with its group and headed to the first village on their list.
When they got close to their target, Wrr dropped to the back of the group. It felt a flush of shame, but stubbornly held its position. This high up no one would smell it and it could barely see the lumpy people below. With any luck, all the seeds would be gathered without it having to interact with any of the lumpies. In a few minutes the smell of leaving filled its spokes and it gusted relief in spite of itself. It managed to keep to the back, up high, for the next two villages as well.
The last village twisted into view below. It saw a mass of color and waving seeds. One of the lumpy beings was making a hole in its face, over and over. It looked very agitated and was moving its seeds around at a rapid rate. In spite of Wrr’s caution, it lowered itself down to see if the lumpy was alright. The lumpy stopped moving and its face hole appeared again, but much smaller. Wrr rippled its spokes in a pattern of mourning. The lumpy moved the seeds closer, and Wrr prepared a cloud of Sll’s scents to share sorrow, then took the seeds. The lumpy was still and Wrr released its cloud, full of sadness and pride. It watched the lumpy breathe Sll’s scents in, and felt the power of shared grief.
Wrr rose up and headed to the upper atmosphere. This year’s pilgrimage was done. Sll had been honored, by both races, and it had not shirked its duty completely. It even had seeds to sow in the community garden. It felt its spokes ruffle as it flew, and let a scent of joy and relief waft through the thin air. “Rest well Sll. Be at peace”, it thought. “Worlds of beings honor you.”
Pamela Zero is the author of the Visitor Series, a trilogy featuring people pulled forward hundreds of thousands of years into the future.
You can check out her amazon page here
and her debut novel, the first in the trilogy here.
Interview with Ernest Hogan
Q. When you were first published in 1990, you were described as one of the up and coming new writers of the decade. Nowadays, however, you’re more widely known as the father of Chicano Science Fiction. How do these two phases differ for you? What can you do now that you couldn’t do then? And vice versa?
A: Actually, my first story sale was in 1982. My first publication of any kind was back in 1969 or 70. I could write something and it could end up on comic book racks all over the country. I started high school knowing I could be a writer, but it wasn’t easy—it was a long, hard guerrilla campaign. It felt like I was thrashing away for centuries when I sold my first novel—which wasn’t the first one I wrote. It’s pretty rare for some to sell their first attempt. The first novel I wrote is still unpublished. . . Maybe, someday . . .
It felt good being called an up-and-comer, but it didn’t last. The publishers—especially the science fiction crowd, didn’t want a wild and crazy guy coming up with new ideas, they wanted “marketable” fantasy epics and space wars. And I’m not getting into the whole Chicano thing yet. . .
This was when Tor was giving million dollar advances to writers like Newt Gingrich.
They told me that Cortez on Jupiter didn’t sell, and when High Aztech came out all kinds of strange things happened:
No review copies were sent out—I kept hearing, “Is your book out? We got books from Tor, and yours wasn’t in the box.” The ad in Locus had no text, just a big, gray, blank space.
The Mexican science fiction magazine Umbrales published a positive review, so I sent identical letters to my editor and the publisher telling them make sure outlets in border towns were stocked with it, because people will be coming up from Mexico to buy it, both letters came back unopened, stamped RETURN TO SENDER, NO SUCH ADDRESS. I wrote my agent, who confirmed I did have the address right. I asked what could have happened. She wrote back “Gremlins?”
When I was trying to get copies for an autograph session, I called one of my editors, he went to look, excited to help me, and after a long wait, came back confused: “Uh, I don’t know what happened, I was sure we had copies this morning—but now they’re gone.” When I told my agent, she contacted them, assuming the first printing had sold out, and was told, “They didn’t sell—they’re just gone.”
They rejected my next novel, Smoking Mirror Blues. No New York publisher would touch it, Finally, in the year 2000 it was published by Wordcraft of Oregon. I have not been able to sell anything to a New York publisher since.
I tell people that I keep on foot on the underground, so when the shit hits the fan, I’ll have a place to stand.
I don’t really see two phases in my career, the industry thrashed me, but I kept on writing. Chicano, and Latinx readers and academics treat me like a chignón. But I’m not a specialized, ethnic studies writer, I have fans in England, France, Mexico, Russia, and other places. Except for a short time when I got depressed, I never stopped writing. I keep doing new and different things, because just the way I am. It’s how I interact with my environment.
Q. Your first novel, Cortez on Jupiter has become something of an underground cult classic. What was it like being published way back in the day before the internet?
A: It was a totally different world. Most communications were through the physical mail, and it could be weeks before you got a reaction. Then there was the whole process of creating a manuscript with a typewriter, when cut and paste literally meant using scissors and glue, and physically mailing it. . .
Nowadays, communication with editors is instantaneous. They can demand changes overnight. And I once got a novel rejected twenty minutes after sending it.
The social media makes self-promotion a lot easier. An underground cult classic can become popular faster. Readers can buy books from small presses with a couple of clicks. You can also let people know that you’re still around, and haven’t given up or died.
I was invited to do my column, Chicanonautica, for La Bloga, because of my Facebook activity. Strange Particle Press, who republished my novels, found out about me through La Bloga. This led to academics discovering me.
None of this would have been possible in the pre-internet days.
Q. Am I right in saying you’ve only published three novels in the last thirty years? Has this been a deliberate attempt of pacing your writing career out, being in it for the long haul and taking your time?
A: Argh. Nothing in my career happened the way I thought it would. I thought I would dazzle the world with short fiction – if Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison could do it, why not me? I didn’t think that being a Chicano would be the big, hairy stumbling block that it turned out to be. I figured by now I’d be rich, famous, and writing whatever I damn well please as a Grand Old Man of Letters.
The publishing biz still doesn’t know what to do with me. Do I really exist? Am I human? Are those rumors of cannibalism and human sacrifice true?
Editors tend to like me, but the corporate entities they have to answer to don’t see any commercial potential in me. Still, there are people who love my work.
I have several unpublished novels. My attempt to write a “straight, commercial novel” was eventually deemed “too weird” for any New York publisher.
So I get published where I can. Usually something out on the fringes, taking advantage of new technology.
Yeah, I’m in it for the long haul. I’m not going away. I’ve given up on trying to please “them” whomever they may be. I have these novels I want to write before I die. And I get new ideas all the time.
But then, I can be distracted if someone wants to make a serious deal for real money...
Q. Your writing style often seems quite ‘train of thought.’ Do you scribble in notebooks and edit later?
A: It’s always gonzo, stream-of-consciousness or screenplay-like image collage with me. My current novel is a gigantic, unholy mess. I always make a mess first. In notebooks and sketchbooks.
I’m dyslexic, and my mom got some bad advice that had her taking things out of my left hand and putting them in my right hand, which messed me up and made my life a lot more interesting than it should have been (thanks, Mom, I love you). If it wasn’t for my superpower of an imagination I would have been doomed.
After I have enough of a mess, I go in and thrash it around until it can be sent off to the markets.
It’s a violent process, not at all pretty.
Q. Do you have a favourite line or paragraph; an excerpt from your writing that you’re particularly fond of?
A: I seem to be quotable. Whenever I see excerpts from my stuff, I’m impressed. Wow, did I really do that?
I don’t dwell on my past work. I’m thinking about what I’m doing now, and I’m always doing something.
I also do great one-liners that I put on Facebook and Twitter. People always say I should make them into stories, but most of the time, one-liners are just one-liners. Occasionally, these have ended up in my writing.
Q. Is ‘alternative writing’ hard to get right? I’ve found from my own experiences that it’s not like music where something unpolished can come across as cool and effective. So I wanted to ask, how do you achieve making your prose so pure, raw and natural, but also readable? Is it a case of the more you work on it, the more natural it sounds?
A: “Alternative” writing? I guess you meant informal, unconventional prose that mimics the words that actually come out of people when they experience life without the usual filters, the kind English majors like, where all the rules are followed to the letter. I find proper prose to be boring. And I didn’t have to spend much time around English majors to figure out that I wasn’t one of them.
What I try to do is make the words come alive. There it is, creative writing in a nutshell.
My dyslexia made learning writing and reading the way they teach it in school difficult. Then I discovered comic books, and soon was reading more and faster than anyone else in my class. I was more interested in comics, television, and movies than books. My approach to prose is more like dialogue or speech than “writing.” (I also tend to start with images and words come tumbling after.) The problem is, the publishing world is ruled by English majors. I work toward an awkward truce.
Q. Which ‘alternative writers’ are you a fan of? Who have you been compared to?
A: Harlan Ellison was a big influence in my early days. The New Wave and experimental writing took me to some interesting places. I like Ishmael Reed, William S. Burroughs, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. I’ve been compared to both Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta (AKA Dr. Gonzo).
Q. You have a new story out in Speculative Fiction For Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology. What can you tell us about that?
A: That’d be “Those Rumors of Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice Have Been Greatly Exaggerated” inspired by my travels in Aztlán (the Southwest). After he has left the U.S.A., a gringo anthropologist gets picked up by a pair of Latinoid truckers who take him on a wild ride.
I’m really proud of this story. I think it’s a prime example of Chicano Science Fiction, reveling in societal mutations and new lifestyles that come about in and around what I call the Latinoid Continuum.
I hope a lot of people read it.
I’d get my hopes up for an award if I hadn’t gotten disgusted with them decades ago.
Q. In fact you’ve had quite a number of short stories published over the years. Who are you most proud to have been published by?
A: I’m proud to have appeared in Amazing and Analog, and to be connected to the tradition of the pulp magazine. Also, I thank Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies for giving me clout in La Cultura.
Q. Your wife is a writer too. Have you ever worked together?
A: Now and then. We are very different writers. We can work in the same room and be in different universes. We’re always bouncing ideas off each other. We have fun together. Our collaborations tend not to sell, We’d probably do more of them if they did.
Q. Okay, last question. You’ve been described as a writer who is both controversial and ahead of his time. Do you think there’s a connection there, or are these simply two different aspects of the effect your stories have?
A: I’m always doing something different. I can’t help it. If I don’t I get bored. I’m also out of sync. Everybody crowds around something, and I drift off, and find something else to focus on. Sometimes these things sell years or decades later. Meanwhile, I’m getting old. I don’t know how many decades I may have left. At least I’m going to have some fun.
Thanks very much for the interview Ernest Hogan.
You can check out Ernest Hogan's amazon page here
Connect with him on goodreads here
And find his website here
