For the curious reader of science fiction (scifi) and fantasy
Safe on the ground, after shattering a host of records.The streaming has been cutting in and out, so I don’t know yet whether or not Baumgartner broke the sound barrier. Press conference about to start.
Edit: He did break the sound barrier, at 833.9 miles per hour in freefall!
I’m watching the live coverage of Felix Baumgartner’s balloon flight to the edge of outer space. He’s presently at 127,000 feet and still ascending, well past the previous record for manned balloon flight. The plan is for him to jump in his specialized pressure suit and freefall through the sound barrier before parachuting to the ground.
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| Live shot of capsule at nearly 128,000 feet |
He’s having problem with the heat not working in his faceplate, but they’ve just announced that he will jump regardless. They’re beginning now to depressurize the capsule, preparatory to his stepping out of the capsule and jumping…
Stay tuned!
My friend Rich Bowker posted an interesting examination of a Newsweek cover story entitled… well, let me quote Rich:
So Newsweek has a cover story called Proof of Heaven: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife. It’s a pretty standard near-death experience story, with a couple of twists: it’s told by a neurosurgeon, and it took place during a coma during which his brain supposedly wasn’t functioning:
There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.
Rich goes on to cite a rebuttal in Huffington Post by physicist and vocal atheist Victor Stenger.
Because I cannot leave well enough alone, I decided to chime in. And here’s the comment I left on Rich’s blog:
After reading both the Newsweek article and the Stenger “rebuttal” of it, I’d have to say I find both pieces of writing wanting for rigor. Dr. Alexander’s piece is interesting and provocative, but, to be sure, not “proof” of anything except that he had an extraordinary personal experience. Was his experience a glimpse of an objectively real extra-dimensional existence? It seemed so to him. You call it “pretty standard-issue stuff for near-death experience (NDE) stories,” which it is. But you can’t discount the possibility that the reason it’s standard issue is because many people have glimpsed the same otherworldly view, and it’s actually real. (It could also be because that’s the sort of image that the brain circuitry produces under certain stressful conditions.)
Bottom line, I don’t know any way the rest of us can know if it was real or not, nor is it clear to me how–even theoretically–one could scientifically study his particular case, unless there turned out to be EEG recordings or something that could shed light, perhaps by recording a burst of brain activity at some crucial point. Even that wouldn’t really prove anything. So we’re left with the evidence of his subjective experience, which I would say is not without value, but also not a smoking gun. One wishes he had asked those questions about alternative explanations. Maybe he does, in his book.
So Stenger asked the questions for him. And if you wonder if Stenger has a dog in this race*, it’s instructive to look at the titles of some of his books: God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist and God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion — neither of which fills me with confidence about his objectivity on the question. He dismisses Alexander’s account as “the classic argument from ignorance,” and goes on about the “God of the gaps” view, but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of Alexander’s account at all. In fact, I don’t find Stenger’s argument at all more objective than Alexander’s. Stenger has a clear axe to grind, and Newsweek and Alexander give him an easy target by claiming “proof of Heaven” when what Alexander has is powerful experiential evidence (powerful to him) that cannot easily be tested.
You’re right; it’s not proof of Heaven–any more than science shows that God does not exist. Both claims go way beyond the bounds of science.
What to do? Maybe SF has something interesting to say on the subject. Oh wait–it does. Connie Willis’s novel Passage.
*I seem to recall that Stenger was one of the authors I complained about in my own critique of the New Scientist’s “God Issue” last Spring. I complained because he presented very little science, but did so in a most authoritative voice. And I have to say, the more I read and think on the subject, the more convinced I become that the scientists who speak most authoritatively on questions of philosophy and theology seem to be the ones who fail to recognize when they’ve stepped out of bounds of science.
Here’s a lovely video of some flight tests of Virgin Galactic’s and Scaled Composite’s Spaceship Two. I meant to post this a while back, but I don’t think I ever did. Anyway, it’s worth watching twice!
Every once in a while, if you’re any kind of artist, I think it’s good to reflect on the question of what you’re trying to bring to the world.
I got an email the other day from a reader of The Chaos Chronicles. This fellow—let’s call him Q—had read and enjoyed the first four books (bless him), and was wondering about the next one, which I’m currently writing. Q wanted to know if I was intending to follow the path of other once-favorite writers who had let him down, saying:
“One class of authors have determined that you are not a professional writer unless you rip your heroes to shreds in the end. [My once favorite] author subscribed to that theory and turned [his] protagonists into really rotten people ready to kill each other.” Was I planning, he wondered, to do something like that with my characters—and if so, could I let him know now, so he could save himself the trouble of reading my next book?
Although I might not put it in such stark terms, I’ve noticed a similar trend in current entertainment. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read about the upcoming season of a TV show, or a sequel in a movie series, promising: “This next one will be darker. You’ll lose some people you love.” Examples include even comic book fare such as the Batman movies, and Superman (both in film and in TV’s Smallville). And I just recently read that we can count on the next Avengers movie being “darker.” Darker is better, so often goes the thinking. Frankly, I’m not a big fan of the trend. I don’t find it all that entertaining, or a particularly wonderful world view; and when it’s done just for the sake of being dark and not for sound storytelling reasons, I don’t see it as necessarily contributing much to the human endeavor.
Not that darkness is never warranted, or is always wrong. There are great tragedies, obviously. (Though on balance, I’m way more drawn to humor than to tragedy.) But in SF terms, take BSG, with which I was peripherally involved as a novelist. That certainly went dark and gritty, plumbing the depths of its primary characters’ pain. It was so well done, and for the most part justified psychologically, that I kept with it (though my daughter dropped out of watching it, saying enough is enough). Certainly there was realism in it: If your race has been nearly exterminated, and you with the final remnant are being pursued across space by an implacable enemy, things will probably get pretty dark. At the same time, there’s a fine line that divides dramatic exploration from wallowing, and at times I felt BSG sheared pretty close to that line.
So how did I answer Q? Here’s what I said, more or less:
“I do not subscribe to the school of thinking that all roads lead to misery, or that all good characterization leads to corruption and degradation. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have viewed the journey of my characters as being one of growth and maturity. Obviously there’s sacrifice. But if there isn’t a sense of hope and redemption at the end of the story, you have my permission to shoot every one of my characters and put them out of their misery. I don’t promise no pain, loss, or grief. But if something good doesn’t come out of the pain and loss, then I’m not doing my job as a writer, as I see it—which is to bring a ray of light into the world. I do not want the reader to feel depressed at the end of one of my books. Sad maybe, grieving at a loss maybe, but never dark or depressed. Uplifted, preferably.”
Think the end of The Lord of the Rings. There’s a kind of ending I aspire to.
Why do I feel this way? If I said it was because I think uplifting is better than down-dragging, healthier for life and better for us as an audience and as a planet, that would be true. If I said it was because I think God gave me some talent as a writer so that I could bring a little more light and life into the world, hope rather than despair, that would be true. If I said it was because those are the kinds of stories I want to read, that would be true.
So take your pick, whichever works best for you. They’re all me.
This has been a good summer for ebook sales. Although my short story collections haven’t gained much traction (Whattza matter, you don’t like short stories??), the other books have been gaining steadily. There was a big jump in July, for no obvious reason, and August was almost as good, with September so far following suit. I’m talking mainly about the backlist books I put out myself, because those I have timely numbers for—but I have reason to think Sunborn, in its Tor edition, is doing pretty well, too.
We’re not talking headline numbers here, like some indie authors you may have read about. But over a thousand ebooks a month generates a meaningful contribution to the family budget, and represents continuing growth in the audience.
The vast majority of those sales are through the Amazon Kindle store, with Nook, Apple, and Sony bringing up a distant rear. That makes me a trifle uneasy, I admit—not because there’s anything wrong with the Kindle store, but because I wish there were more healthy competition in the marketplace. I wish, for example, that I had more sales in Book View Café, because it’s a terrific little store and a terrific cooperative of great writers. And I wish the Nook store would get its mojo back.
So what’s the funny thing? Here it is: My sales in the UK have taken off in the last two months. In fact, they now account for about half my total sales. In fact, in September, I’ve sold more books through Amazon UK than I have through Amazon US. That’s amazing, and I have no explanation! But I’m delighted to have a lot of new British readers. Welcome to the Chaos Chronicles! And welcome, too, to the daring few German readers who are trying the books.
I’m grateful for every book sale and every new reader. Still, it’s fun to try to figure out the patterns. Only this time I can’t! I’m stumped!
Watch a sweet, kind of sad, 9-minute film that has nothing to do with the topic of this post. I just like it. It’s about a robot marooned in space.
Robbie – A Short Film By Neil Harvey from Neil Harvey on Vimeo.
I was about to flip off the TV last night when I saw what was playing in real-time: a B-52s concert on PBS, recorded live in 2011. Fascinated, I dropped into the couch like a baked potato and watched for a while. I’ve always liked the B-52s, from the time I first heard “Rock Lobster,” back in the day.*
Thirty or so years later, they still sounded pretty good. But when my daughter came over and said, “Wow, I thought they’d look older. They look really well preserved,” I winced a little. Because I was kind of thinking just the opposite. Not that they don’t look well preserved, but the truth is, I still picture them as they looked, well, back in the day. Their stage moves had that slightly awkward quality of aging rock stars still trying to look young. I thought with a shudder of how I might look, up on stage, trying to come off as vibrant and hip. [Ow.]
But what really got me was the shots of the audience, wearing silly headgear and gyrating to the music. And that’s when I wondered which is scarier: the sight of an aging rock band still truckin’ on, or the sight of the aging Boomers who turn out to see them? Speaking, you understand, as an aging Boomer.
On the other hand, they all looked like they were having a really good time—so who am I to criticize? Besides, as I zoned out and listened, I got an idea that I needed to help me work out problems in my current chapter. Keep on truckin’, guys!
*circa 1979 or 1980
I’ve actually been home from my retreat for about a week and a half. I knew I was in the right house when I walked in and heard Allysen yell, “Hi. Why isn’t this @$#@! printer working?!” And the dog was plaguing the cat and needed to go out, and I learned that friends were coming over the next night, bringing a newly-arrived Pakistani exchange student, and the family had really intended to have the house clean before I got home. Really! Ah… home sweet home! There is no finer!
For the last day of my writing retreat, I opted to spend the afternoon at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Communing with the ocean where the waves meet the shore has always been, for me, a great way to center my thoughts and find perspective. A great way to remember that I am something small (not unimportant, but small) in a reality much greater. A great place to listen for the whispers of God.
When I’m away from the ocean, I forget how beautiful it is! And today I found possibly the greatest beauty in a place I’d seen before—stopped and looked at briefly before—but never taken the time to walk around and absorb. That’s the salt marsh estuary behind the National Seashore Visitors Center.
There’s something about the peacefulness of a salt marsh that’s almost spiritual. It’s God-breathed, teeming with life, a biologist’s dream, and a remarkable buffer between land and sea that has elements of both. Grass, fish, birds, amphibians, fresh water and salt, the open ocean just beyond the protective spit of sand. You can almost close your eyes and see the millions of years of geologic change and biological evolution that brought you this place of quiet ferment, this thing of beauty that helps clean the sea and protect its young, and at the same time shields the land from the sea’s fury. On this occasion I didn’t see any charismatic birds or other animals, but in quiet contemplation I did feel the hint of divinity, and of the deep works of time.
Interestingly, I also perceived more clearly some things that have been eluding me, details that might well be important to The Chaos Chronicles, and to the story behind The Reefs of Time. In the salt marsh I saw some things I needed to know about the translator (this will make sense only if you’ve read at least one of the books), and even about the enemy that makes life in the galaxy so fraught with danger in this new book. I also realized I probably need to add a couple of new chapters in the next draft, chapters set way back in deep, deep time. So you see, sometimes the quiet, personal times like standing and contemplating the ocean’s edge are exactly what the writer of far-flung futures in space needs. I’m grateful to have had the chance.
Here are a few more pictures. The open ocean over the dunes was pretty wonderful, too.
(And considering that I was holding my cellphone camera at arm’s length and aiming blind, I thought the “self portrait of the artist” came out pretty well.)
