Tag Archives: science fiction

Writing Alien Son

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Like my other books, Alien Son is science fiction, with more than a hint of romance.

It’s set in the same world as Saving Aran, and those of you who have read that book will recognize some of the characters. You may remember that there was a mystery in Saving Aran that was not resolved in that book: How can it be that there are humans on both Earth and Aran? These are people so genetically similar that they can interbreed. The odds they would evolve independently on two planets light-years apart are miniscule, like the odds that simple Brownian motion would suddenly lift your entire desk up into the air. Yet, though scientists have searched both planets for any archaeological or other evidence of any kind of alien contact in the past, there is nothing that can explain the existence of these two entirely separate human populations.

There’s also an unresolved personal mystery in Saving Aran. Cort’s father is no longer around. His mother tells him his father “went to Earth.” Does she mean that literally, that he somehow managed to get aboard one of the Earthers’ starships and literally fly to planet Earth? In the slang of the city where Cort grew up, the phrase “went to Earth” is a euphemism for dying. It seems more likely his father died than somehow managed to get to Earth. In the khenaran–the ancient forest–those who die are reborn, but the wise whynywir, who know everything about the planet, have no information about Cort’s father. Is it possible he really did fly to Earth?

Alien Son answers both of these questions. And way more, besides. Best of all, there’s no need to read Saving Aran first. Instead, you can read Alien Son first as a completely stand-alone book, and then later, if you wish, enjoy Cort’s back story.

In Alien Son, we meet Mikel, half Earther and half Arantu, the much-younger son of Cort’s father. The son born on Earth with an Earther mother. The son who is driven to pursue some great accomplishment in his life that will be worthy of his martyr father’s heroic efforts to save Aran from Earther exploitation.

We also meet Aiana, a historian from the far-distant future, who is using time travel based on technology-enhanced lucid dreaming to seek out a historically significant personage from Earth’s past (as she sees it). She finds Mikel on Aran. He’s the one she is looking for, but he has no intention of returning to Earth. Yet he must, for history has already been written. How can she get him to fulfill his destiny, even if it means his death? Worse, her dreaming self is getting harder to control. She’s falling in love with the man.

Time travel, it turns out, is incredibly hard to write. My future could be your past, and both of these might be different from an objectively drawn timeline. There is a very large time loop in Alien Son, spanning millennia of objective time. At any point in the story, the two protagonists know very different things because they’ve been in different objective times at different subjective times.

Finally, I had to draw a flowchart to keep it all straight, and to make sure the time-twisted story is actually self-consistent. I’ve shown this flowchart to a few people, but never publicly, not until now. You are seeing it first, here.

Spoiler alert! If you prefer to enjoy your surprises in the twists and turns of the book, scroll down no further! You can buy the book (or read for free on Kindle Unlimited) here.

Alien Son time loop

Saving Aran, my newest book

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I started writing Saving Aran about thirty years ago, and I’ve re-written it a few times since. It wasn’t my first book. I thought at the time that it was, in fact, my best book ever. I’d written maybe half a dozen YA books before it. Most of them starred a reality-shifter named Roderin, and all were enjoyed by my son, then in grade school, and some of his cousins–and not too many other people. I was too busy to publish. A mistake, I now see, but I was working fifty-hour weeks, including some travel, and raising two children. I didn’t want to take on a second job.

And honestly, I still don’t really want to be taking on this job of publishing. I want to keep writing new books, but I do also want to get this book into your hands and those of people everywhere who might enjoy a good science-fiction action adventure story.

Three images of the cover of Saving Aran, in a book, on an e-reader, and on a phone.

What’s it about?

It’s about perseverance and keeping promises. A city boy named Cort on the planet Aran whose best friend is abducted and sold to the aliens from Earth will stop at nothing to find and free her. When his first rescue attempt fails, he embarks on a journey to gain the skills and the help he needs to try again and succeed.

It’s about never giving up hope. Emprisoned on the aliens’ base, Cort’s friend Dilia continues to believe he will rescue her if he can. But maybe he can’t. Dilia girds herself to make the most of her time there. She learns much from the Earthers about the medicinal plants of Aran, while ever on the look-out for a way to escape.

Most of all, it’s about understanding that we are a part of a planetary ecosystem–a community larger than our neighborhoods and cities and even our nations. In Aran’s primeval forests, Cort begins having nightmares–the deep dreams of the trees that the aliens are destroying, upsetting the balance of life on the planet. And he will do what he must to protect them.

Is it really, finally finished?

Saving Aran has been through probably at least half a dozen re-writes, some of them substantial. It’s been edited and re-edited by my then-agent and still-friend Jim Frenkel. I think it’s really well done, a timeless story of biological and spiritual entanglement, and of love, completely worthy of the bold cover created by Deranged Doctor Design.

Here is a small excerpt from Saving Aran. Enjoy!

Between where they stood and the village, the forest opened up, and on a slight rise stood a man. He was of middle age, his black hair salted with grey. His vest was beaded in light and dark blue, and blue beads adorned the fringes of his dark pants. When he turned toward them, a blue crystal at his temple flashed in the sunlight. A seer!

The man stood straight and tall, his hands loosely holding a staff that extended from the ground to well above his head. Alternately rough and smooth, the staff had a slight bend as if it reached for something, and green leaves adorned a cluster of sprigs at its top. The wood of the staff gleamed in a rainbow of colors. It was the largest piece of worked khena wood Cort had ever seen.

Neder glanced at Cort, then nodded slightly as if acknowledging something someone had said to him. “It’s Tirei,” he said. “He’s the headman of my village, and a seer. He’s the one you’ll need to talk with about becoming a hunter.”

Neder set off down the hill. Cort followed him, his heart lifting, now that the end of his mission was finally in sight.

When they reached the older man, Neder introduced Cort. Tirei greeted him politely, and Cort managed a polite response, but he could barely tear his gaze from Tirei’s staff, which seemed to glow with a special light. Seen this close, it was even more remarkable than from a distance, dancing with sparks of an inner fire. His hand twitched with the desire to reach toward it.

“It is living wood,” Tirei said, following Cort’s gaze. “Would you like to touch it?”

‘Living wood’ was a good name for it. Colors and patterns swam like fish in its translucent grain. Cort didn’t trust himself to speak. He swallowed hard and nodded.

Tirei spread out his hands on the staff to open a large space between them. “Go ahead,” he said, with the kind of encouraging nod he might give to a small child trying something for the first time.

Cort stretched out his hand and took hold of the staff, then gasped in astonishment. The wood seemed alive in more ways than one. It was as if the staff had actively taken hold of his own hand. It was warm, and Cort could feel its strength. Vitality flowed down his arm and seemed to send sparks inward to his heart. He felt he had the power to do anything, to rescue Dilia, to succeed. His other arm felt weak by comparison, and so he placed his other hand on the staff just above the first. The feeling was utterly exhilarating.

“How do you ever put this staff down?” he said.

“It’s not difficult,” Tirei answered. Cort met the seer’s eyes. They were a soft, light brown, and his expression was filled with something serious, like sorrow or sympathy. “With the staff of the living wood comes great responsibility. Sometimes it’s good to put such responsibility aside.”

As had happened too often since he came to this forest, Cort failed to understand. His face must have betrayed his confusion, for the seer added, “While we hold this staff together, neither you nor I can lie to the other, and we will hold onto it until the staff lets us go. Now listen to me. I am Tirei-sunar of the clan of the hawk, instrument of the whynywir, seer, head of this village, and the father of five. I have lived here my entire life. Now tell me about yourself.”

“My name is Cort.” Cort felt terribly self-conscious. “I am city-born and clanless.” He lifted his chin slightly as he spoke, defying the seer to reject him. “I don’t live in the city anymore. I don’t know where I live. And, Tirei, even without the staff I wouldn’t have lied to you.”

Tirei nodded. “I know that—now. But without the staff, I wouldn’t have been sure. Now tell me about your name.”

“My name? But I already told you,” he said. “It’s Cort. I was named after my father.”

“But ‘Cort’ is not a forest name,” said the older man.

“No, I guess not. Why should it be? I’m not a forest person. His name was something else. Longer.”  Cort frowned, trying to get it just right. “Something like Cort-anaran—and so is mine. But no one wants to deal with a long name like that, so no one ever calls me that.”

The older man’s eyes went distant for a moment, as if he were considering something complicated. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Corodh-an-Aran?”

“What?” Cort tried to move his hands to a more comfortable position, but they were as stuck as if they had been glued to the staff.

“Could his name have been Corodh-an-Aran?”

“Yes, I guess that sounds about right. The way you forest people pronounce the old words is a bit different from how we say them in the city.”

“More correct,” said Tirei.

“I guess. Yes, probably; that would make sense.”

“Corodh-an-Aran.” The older man drew out the syllables like a benediction.

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“You don’t know what it means?” 

“Should I?”

The seer sighed. “‘Corodh’ is a fine old word but it’s fallen out of common usage. You might say, ‘justice,’ but that’s not exactly right. It has the flavor of being what one is meant to be, doing what one is meant to do, having what one is meant to have. The rightness of things, and also setting things right. A good word. ‘An’ and ‘aran,’ you probably know. Of the forest, or for it. This whole world.”

“Setting things right for Aran? For our world?”  The idea pleased Cort. He stood a little straighter.

“Yes, that’s part of it. The forest being and having what she is meant to have. The one who makes sure that happens. Who sets things right for our world.”

Cort smiled. “I like that,” he said. Then, after thinking about it, he added, “Still, it’s only a name.”

“An ancient one,” said the seer. “A good one. And why have you come here, Cort?”

“To become a hunter, like Neder.”

Tirei raised a quizzical eyebrow and glanced at Neder. Standing at Cort’s side, almost out of the range of his sight, the hunter nodded. “But why?” the seer asked.

“To save my friend Dilia, who is like a sister to me,” Cort replied. “More than a sister. My father and mother are dead. My home has been burned down. But Dilia is in the city or on the base somewhere, captive, and I intend to rescue her. It’ll be dangerous. I can’t do it alone. I’ll need a kiri.” He swallowed and added, “Probably no one’s ever hunted in the city before, but I intend to do it, and I’ll succeed, too. And—I didn’t know this at first, but now I do—when I’ve rescued Dilia, I want to bring her back here to the khenaran, and I still want to be a hunter then.”

“This will be decided by the whynywir,” said the seer.

It wasn’t quite a rejection, but it was far from the agreement Cort would have liked. “I understand that, but you’re a seer! You talk with them directly, so you must have some influence with them. Will you help me?”

Again Tirei exchanged glances with Neder. Then he gave Cort a slight, sad smile,  suddenly looking weary. “I will do what I feel is right for you, Cort-anaran. For you and for all of Aran.”

A Brief History of Eden’s World, Part 1

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This is the first in a series of posts describing the history of the world of Freeing Eden from the late twenty-first century until the time of the story. This part covers the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. I wrote the initial draft of this a few years ago, but despite the intervening time, the section about the twenty-first century still rings true–or at least believable–to me. How about you?

21st Century

By the middle of the 21st century, improved space-based optics enable the identification of potentially Earth-like planets in remote star systems. This development sparks some excitement, especially in the United States and in Russia, both of which countries have experienced setbacks in world influence. Amid great fanfare, they agree to cooperate to send unmanned probes to remote star systems. Not to be outdone, the Chinese independently also establish a program of exploration.

Exploration of Earth’s solar system also continues. A treaty is reached for cooperation in research and settlement in the solar system and in space that is similar to the ones already in place regarding Antarctica. Small international scientific research-oriented bases are established in orbit around Earth, on Mars, and on Luna, all environments inimical to human survival and therefore extremely costly and difficult to maintain.

Continuing experiments to validate (or disprove) string theory finally yield results. Space is proven to be ten-dimensional, with time itself providing the eleventh dimension that some theorists of the last century had insisted upon. The most advanced computers can now manipulate the mathematics of the structure of the universe as it is now understood.

But Earth is unable to solve its climate-change problem. Agreement after agreement is reached, but one government, or all, or the worst offenders, continue to mandate less action than needed, and in some cases, take less action than mandated, until a “point of no return” is passed in the middle of the century. But the point of no return is not the point of total disaster—not yet. Although climate-change effects are measurable, they are small enough on a worldwide scale, or local enough as a disaster, or slow enough to allow local action such as building dikes, for most people to ignore most of the time. Yet global warming becomes, according to scientists, essentially inescapable. Pollution of the air and waters also continues. Especially among the poorest and most vulnerable peoples, population growth continues. As in the previous century, there are humanitarian crises in the poorer regions, with potable water in short supply, occasional disease epidemics, continuing conflict, and deaths. Increasingly erratic weather triggers population migrations. In response to the changing climate, agricultural production becomes unreliable—in one place, flourishing where never before possible; in another, failing because of insufficient water.

The rich continue to get richer while the poor get little relief. As oil becomes a scarce resource and poverty becomes endemic in many third-world regions, terror groups and rogue governments continue to threaten the wealthier countries.

22nd Century

Sea walls are built to protect the streets of certain parts of New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, London, and other low-lying coastal cities around the globe. Even so, these places are flooded in severe storms, which occur more frequently than previously. Coastal areas where water rises from the ground, such as much of Florida, are abandoned. Conditions generally continue to deteriorate but at a slow pace. The world government moves to Geneva. Much of humankind’s scientific endeavor moves to research enclaves in higher-altitude areas such as Denver, including significant research departments of many of the world’s major universities.

Sub-atomic engineering provides the first prototypes of the rotational drive—a device that works by rotating matter from the three dimensions of regular space to three of the other seven special dimensions, all of which are tiny, tremendously shortening interstellar distances. Although scientists of previous centuries had predicted that the energy needed to bypass light speed would be greater than all the energy in the solar system, this has fortunately proved false. The early scientists had based their calculations on housing the drive in normal space, but the heart of the rotational drive is actually in quantum space, where statistical uncertainty sampling provides a basis for implementation of the rotation algorithm with almost no energy cost. Toward the middle of the 22rd century, the first human-scale (non-quantum) rotational drive prototype is produced and is used on a limited basis for research and for exploration. The research stations on Mars are now easily reachable.

Scientists receive the first results from the previous century’s interstellar probes and begin to discover more habitable planets using the rotational drive. Early in the century, several planets are identified that are quite Earth-like and have no sign of intelligent life.

Advanced digital printing techniques allow mass production of the rotational drive at low cost. Manned exploration of the stars begins.

In preparation for possible terraforming of dozens of new planets, a few limited terraforming experiments are conducted by the research stations on Mars. These are gratifyingly successful, but at much larger cost than anticipated. Scientists find no “tipping point” at which terraforming can transform the entire planet into an environment suitable for human habitation. It is much more economically feasible to discover, catalog, and settle the new planets.

Hundreds of planets are explored, and by mid-century, dozens are determined acceptable for human habitation as-is, or nearly so. Discussions ensue regarding whether and how to go about settling these planets. A treaty is signed by most of the nations on Earth that limits any kind of exposure, much less settlement, on planets with any signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life; however, no clear cases of such planets are identified. A few planets are found where the evidence is in one way or another equivocal (very ancient ruins of what appear to be built structures in one case); these planets are declared off-limits.

Enthusiasm builds for settlement of other planets as a goal in itself—a new frontier, a new beginning. A sense of optimism about the future, after so many dark years, begins to grow. Some groups, backed by wealthy individuals and consortia, begin exploring and settling some planets on their own.

When this news breaks out, discussions ensue regarding the minimum requirements for sustainable and equitable settlement, and whether private settlements should be allowed, and if so, what regulations should be enacted. Concepts of minimum viable population are discussed, and guidelines are promulgated that establish a baseline population of at least one thousand to ensure viability of the settlement population under most normal conditions.

Emotional momentum builds for outward migration, while conditions on Earth continue to slowly deteriorate. The governments of the larger, more powerful nations—those that are most interested in establishing settlements on other planets—create the International Settlement Control Board (ISCB), an international regulatory body to grant charters and to coordinate settlement efforts. There is heated debate regarding what groups or organizations may be granted charters for settlement (and have their settlement subsidized) by the organization. Private exploration and settlement drops off. As citizens of various nations, the people behind these efforts also fall under the aegis of the treaty to which their nations have agreed, and the minimum-viable-population requirement greatly limits the number of these private activities.

Habitable planets continue to be discovered, but expressions of interest by various groups become more numerous. Earth’s multinational regulatory body begins granting charters of settlement, giving funding priority to representatives of certain populations that are near extinction or threatened on Earth, and to those other groups that agree to incorporate such populations into their settlement plans.

As might be expected, a few settlements are lost because of factors not discovered during exploration, such as poisonous substances or microbes in the soil that were transmitted to the Earth crops the settlers planted. Scientists and engineers work out more careful planet-selection and modification strategies to ensure the safety of the humans and other Earth life that are settled there, with the minimum possible changes to the planetary ecology as a whole. The idea of massive terraforming is abandoned as unnecessary.

On Earth, oil becomes prohibitively scarce. Some regions revert to coal. This causes a significant increase in global air pollution, despite an increase in use of nuclear energy and a marked increase in use of renewable resources. Pollution of the sea causes the extinction of many marine species, with a concomitant drop-off of avian species as well. A major volcanic eruption at the end of the century further increases air pollution and causes two years so cold (in the midst of a trend of overall global warming) that crops in parts of the world fail. Settlement of the planets takes on new urgency.

Wednesday Writers

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Many thanks to Catherine Castle for the chance to share Freeing Eden with her readers! This post about the inspiration for Freeing Eden appeared today on her Wednesday Writers blog. Please join me in following Catherine’s blog and meeting more talented romance writers.

Freeing Eden: A brief history of cloning

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The history of cloning is intimately tied to the history of academic research in the twenty-fourth century and beyond. By the beginning of the century, more than one hundred habitable planets had been discovered and settled, and the expansion of humanity into nearby regions of the galaxy continued apace throughout the century as Old Earth became increasingly uninhabitable.

By the middle of the twenty-fourth century, Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with about half a dozen others, recognized that the center of human population was receding from Old Earth. They joined together to colonize a more conveniently located planet that would be oriented toward the pursuit of higher education, and in particular, to encourage multidisciplinary efforts through co-location. Intense discussions in committee fail to agree on a name for the new planet. To everyone’s dismay, some media jokester began calling the planet “Hoaxford.” Forced to make a decision quickly, the Joint Naming Committee adopted the only name they could agree upon, the singularly unimaginative name “University.”

The founding universities continued to maintain campuses on Old Earth as well as on other planets, but most disciplines, along with the institutions’ administrative functions, moved to the new planet. The charter of the planet also allowed other colleges and universities, existing or new, large or small, to establish campuses on University. Eventually, over three thousand institutes of higher education established branches on University, or moved there outright.

Early in the twenty-fifth century, a research scientist at Stanford (on University), named Marco Jefferson Eddy, developed a technique for growing fully adult human clones in tanks (in vitro) in just three years. In the course of his research, he made eight clones of his own, as well as three of his colleague, Monica Nguyen. The clones were fully physically viable but were, as it turned out, incapable of any kind of human intelligence.

Meanwhile, MIT professor and neuroprogramming expert Beneficio Rossi had been researching brainscan recording, the ability to capture the entire mental state of an individual human being. The two teams integrated their projects—realizing University’s founders’ vision of interdisciplinary cooperation—and created the first human clone who was more than a genetic identical twin but was also a total re-creation of the cloned individual.

Stanford’s Board of Governors declared the project unethical and insisted that it be closed down. MIT’s governing board, to the contrary, affirming free inquiry as a basic scientific principle, urged that the project be pursued. The dispute was referred to the Governing Board of University, who declared the project fraught with ethical problems and strongly recommended that it be discontinued.

Jeff Eddy, Monica Nguyen, and Ben Rossi remained adamant that their research not be restricted or controlled by any administration or government. Claiming the inviolability of academic and scientific freedom, they were joined in this position by many other scientists on University. Powerfully funded and supported by a number of extremely wealthy individuals who were interested in cloning themselves, the group of scientists applied for and received a planetary charter. They resigned their positions on University, and many of their scientific colleagues—including a team studying Eden’s unusual physical properties—joined them on their new world. They called the planet Bigollo, the actual surname of the extraordinary thirteenth-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonnaci.

The Governing Board of University sued the Republic of Bigollo regarding ownership of the research that the various scientific founders of Bigollo took with them, notably Eddy, Nguyen, and Rossi’s cloning and brainscan programming technology. However, the lawsuit was soon bogged down in the courts of Old Earth because of jurisdictional issues.

The dispute regarding cloning was finally resolved out of court at the end of the century when the new Union of Federated Planets passed a law forbidding the use of cloning-with-brainscan technology anywhere in the Union. Bigollo, however, was specifically exempted from this law and thus became the only place where cloning was permitted.

The cloning and programming process was both expensive and imperfect. Because of minor physical differences between the makers and their clones, brainscan programming was ineffective in about one in sixty clones, leaving them as incapable of thought, feeling, or development as the clones initially created by Eddy and Nguyen. Most clones, however, when brought to consciousness at the end of the process, were so successfully programmed that they initially believed they were their makers, with all their makers’ memories from childhood completely intact.

Freeing Eden: Why Eden?

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My first book, Freeing Eden, will be released on May 29th. That’s right around the corner! So between now and then, I’m hoping to share some of my thoughts about this book, and perhaps some vital background information as well.

Yes, it’s science fiction. You can read a short description of the plot on the book page at Amazon if you’d like. In fact, I’d be glad if you would, but that’s not what this post is about. This post explores why the planet is called Eden and what makes it particularly Eden-like.

The book initially came about because I began wondering about the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible. Why should it be the case that simply knowing about good and evil is enough to be banished from Eden? At this point, we are not talking about Adam and Eve having committed evil. Sure, maybe a little deviation from the letter of the instruction, but evil? That would be a stretch. And yet, they were cast out.

In order to understand why this exile might be necessary, I had first to imagine a place that would be very Eden-like. Yet it also had to be a place where real people live. What would such people be like? They would be gentle and welcoming, surely, and they would also be simple and honest. They would abhor any kind of violence to others. But wouldn’t that make them easy prey for anyone else? Particularly if their Eden was full of riches that other people might want for their own?

Could it even survive for very long?

Facing loss of the paradise they live in, and their culture that preserves it, it seems to me that the Edenians would develop a style of nonviolent resistence that might not overcome outside oppression, but it might create a kind of stasis in which what they value most is preserved despite everything.

Into this conflict-ridden Eden, I have placed the very man meant to break the deadlock and save Eden. He’s been cloned from Eden’s great resistance hero and best hope, but somehow the brainscan programming that was supposed to make him an exact double of his maker has been interfered with, so that he remembers nothing.

Can a person of such innocence remain innocent for long on conflict-torn Eden? And for him, is there such a thing as learning too much–such a thing as coming to know good and evil?

Let’s say this happens. Let’s say our protagonist comes to know good and evil–and chooses good. Now, let’s just see how long he can stay on Eden.

Marrakech — In the vicinity of Bahia Palace

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All the maps of the medina of Marrakech are distressingly different from one another. I can’t find the Royal Residence on one, a landmark on our way back to our home in Marrakech, Riad Nafis. In another, I can’t find the hospital that is another landmark. In some it’s hard to figure out exactly where is the Djemaa el Fna, the central plaza of the medina. Even the walls are not drawn in the same places; and gates are unreliably located. I am reminded in an odd way of the mapping problems in Christopher Priest’s wonderful science-fiction novel The Islanders.

So I can’t tell you exactly where the spice market is, except to say that it’s about a block or so from the Bahia Palace, and it seems to be on our way back to our riad. So we went.

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The spice market led from a busy street to a pleasant pedestrian square.

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Outside and beyond this square was a vehicular crossroads, which included–almost beyond our comprehension–an actual one-way street. Now we’d gotten pretty good at crossing streets in Marrakech at this point, having discovered the secret method. (Find a Moroccan who is crossing the street and follow right on his coattails. I pass this tip along to you for free.) But this one-way street was particularly tricky because motorbikers appeared to have a special immunity that allowed them to go at high speed the wrong way up this street.

Er…Sidewalks? Yes, but only intermittently.

On our second full day in Marrakech, we could no longer postpone facing one of the trip’s more difficult questions: Should we try again to buy a Moroccan rug, one that will fit in one of the places where we need a rug?

Yes, we decided. We should. And so we asked our helpful host Laurent if he might recommend a rug dealer that would be, er, well, we knew any rug dealer would be charming but insistent, would praise his merchandise, would ask double a fair price or more, but, dare we say, honest?

And he did. He recommended Dar Benhayoune in the Mellah district and gave us directions to it in relation to the Bahia Palace. It was only a block or so away. So we braved the street crossings, the motorbikes, the so-called one-way street, and found the street of the rug merchant. But no rug merchant.

After going up and down the street twice, we steeled ourselves and asked a man sitting in front of a doorway if he knew the place.

He did.

This was it.

The rug shop was wonderful. Near the entrance sat a woman weaving a rug the old fashioned way on an old fashioned loom, fingers flying as she tied each individual knot. She let me take a turn but had little patience for my inexperienced fingers. I didn’t blame her. The rug she was weaving was beautiful; neither would I want to weave a beginner’s clumsiness into it.

Rugs hung from the second floor balconies in the inner courtyard. Rugs were piled in the rooms off the courtyard. Beautiful rugs, all of them. Beautiful wrong-sized rugs.

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The house, said our rug merchant as he showed us around, used to belong to a Jewish family. We could tell because it had windows facing out to the street; a Muslim household would not have such windows. Later we learned that the Mellah district where this house was located used to be the old Jewish quarter.

I will not bore you with the long story of rugs unfolded and unrolled, beautiful rugs, all the wrong size. Let’s just say that at the last we selected a traditional rug we both really liked that was too small for our space, but not by much. I thought it might do. Dan did not. As we debated with one another, the price came down until it was about a third of the original price. That seemed about right to us, and so we became the owners of a second wrong-size Moroccan rug.

And by some miracle, it actually looks really good in the hallway of our home on Block Island. Not the wrong size after all.

And by a second miracle, on our way back to the riad, we saw a policeman pulling over motorbikers one after another as they came racing the wrong way up the one-way street. And giving them tickets.

 

Arisia

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My experience with cons is growing by leaps and bounds. Arisia is now the fourth con I’ve attended. (The others were Balticon in (guess where!) Baltimore, Readercon in Boston, and Worldcon–the granddaddy of all cons–a roaming con that in 2009 was in Montreal). They all have certain characteristics in common, but each definitely has its own flavor. Arisia is definitely the most crowded, and kept getting more so as the day turned into evening. This corridor was typical:

There were more sessions having to do with sexuality than I’ve seen before (“Swinging vs. Polyamory”, for example, or “Home Depot in the Bedroom”–a whole new way of looking at Home Depot). And ever so many sessions on diversity in SFF (or, presumably the general lack thereof and need for more). In Boston, I deduce, we are modern Victorians, politically correct on the surface and simmering between the sheets.

Best of all, there were more costumes per capita than I’ve seen before. And some of them were pretty amazing. I will confess to being disconcerted for a moment when I came across a very realistic (and charming) Frodo in the ladies room. But costumes have their perils, and so both the escalators and the glass elevators bore large signs:

You probably can’t read the hand lettering at the bottom of the last sign; someone thoughtfully added, “or kilt”. And in fact I’d say that far more kilts were in evidence than short skirts.

The sign just above “Watch your skirt” is an invitation to my friend Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s launch party Sunday night from 8 to midnight for her new book The Halfling’s Court. It’s a biker faery book (yes!). She did a reading from it today, and it was terrific! If you’re in Boston and like fantasy, check it out! It’s not an official con event, so I don’t think you’ll need a badge to get in. (But, hey, while you’re there, check out the con, too!)

Time to move on

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Dan and I are driving to Montreal, where I will be going to Worldcon 67 (Anticipation 2009), and Dan will be hanging out partly working and partly on vacation. We cross the Merrimac River, and Dan says, “Did you know there used to be salmon on the Merrimac River?”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” I say. “The lobster in the ocean used to be so plentiful that they washed up onto the beaches. They fed lobster to the prisoners in the jails so frequently that the prisoners sent a petition to King George begging him to make them stop.”

“Let’s face it,” says Dan. “The planet isn’t what it used to be.”

No, it isn’t. “It’s going downhill fast,” I say, letting my pessimism get the better of me. “Time to move on. Time to get that colony ship ready to voyage out to the next planet.”

“I’ll be the first to volunteer,” says my science-fiction-averse husband.

Whoa.

Wasn’t there an article recently in The Boston Globe Magazine in which the author opines that “The baby boomers are the first generation that will… actually live too long. By refusing to expire after a reasonable number of years, the boomers are threatening the social order”? In arguing that the average lifespan of generations ago was in the forties meant that people in their forties were old, the author has succumbed to a common misunderstanding. She has overlooked the fact that over a third of the population died in infancy, in childhood, and in childbirth. And in war. It was not unusual for those that survived these catastrophes to live into their seventies or eighties or longer. But the author puts forth an argument that may be only too popular among the younger generations: The old folks have been around too long. Time to find a graceful, civilized way to get rid of them.

Well, young lady, this is your chance. We can solve the problem of the Earth on her last gasp and the overpopulation of healthy boomers growing older in one single, visionary stroke: Just pack us up in a space ship and send us off.

Hey, maybe a lot of us will go.

We baby boomers get a virgin planet where lobsters wash up on the beaches, and you get to deal with this dying Earth. Do you think you might actually do something about it before the human cancer kills the whole planet? Somehow, I don’t think so. Maybe it’s already too late.

And worse: Wouldn’t it be just like us to ruin the next planet, too?

Balticon 42

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Call me naïve, but I have managed to reach what we politely call “a certain age” without ever attending an SF Con. Until now. And I have to say, it was a blast! Balticon 42 pretty much dwarfed any conference/convention I have attended since, well, Comdex. There were eleven parallel tracks listed for each day, along with all-day all-night events in film and anime, a LARP, and other special events shown separately. And a dealer room. And parties. And autographs by famous and soon-to-be famous authors and artists. And… Connie Willis!

Of special note for me:

· Meeting Connie Willis (more than once!). She is as much a pleasure as her stories

· Meeting in person a couple of fellow St. Johnnies who are more established in the science-fiction world than I am. I am a fan of John C. Wright, and may soon also be a fan of his delightful wife Jagi Lamplighter

· Getting a lead or two to pursue for publishing some of my stories

· Becoming an on-the-spot member of the panel on “The Future of Cities”. And hats off to our moderator James Patrick Kelly for keeping his cool when the regular panelists didn’t show up. He was great!

· Learning of the simple existence of tracks in art, music, film, and podcasting, even though I attended few of them and mostly by accident

· Attending a session called “Here There Be Dragons” thinking to learn something about dragon lore over the ages but instead learning how to draw the interlace dragon from the cross of Thorlief Hnakki at Braddan, Isle of Mann. What fun, drawing again!

· Attending a podcast of “Live! Mr. Adventure”, complete with commercials, breaking news, and audience participation

· Learning to think in scientific terms about the likelihood that humankind will encounter extra-terrestrial intelligent life (not very likely, probably, but it doesn’t really matter)

· Seeing all the wonderful costumes, both in the masquerade and on the floor

· Getting my head straight about my Web site and blog (this may take a while, but it’s coming)

· Experiencing the joys of volunteering. Who would have thought? And it was my very first Con!

Congratulations to the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and the conference organizers. You put on a great event!