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Empire of Dreams and Miracles
I'm a regular reader of the sci-fi magazines, and I have to say, the stories in this collection are so much better than 95% of what gets published in those magazines. Maybe it's because the big-circulation magazines are so desperate for readership that they prefer to publish only stories from well-known authors, and many of them seem to use the short-story format only as a place to dump ideas that just don't quite make it into novels. The unknown authors in this anthology, on the other hand, seem to come up with fresh ideas and take pains to craft good short stories around them. This is probably what OSC is referring to when he writes in the foreword to the collection that in order "to find deep novelty, readers of science fiction must find new writers as well as new tales from old friends."
Okay, enough of that. What are the stories like? There's a lot here that Slashdot readers would find provocative and interesting. My favorite in the collection is "Twenty-Two Buttons" (my first reaction when I saw this title was: On a mouse or keyboard? Alas, that's not the sort of buttons we are talking about). The story takes place in a future where pollution, crime, and lawlessness have turned the Outside into a myth, and people spend all of their time inside their houses. They manage to go to work and school, find friends and lovers, and have contact with people outside the family only through the Net (ok, ok, so some of us already are living that way, but still), which is heavily censored and monitored by the government -- in fact, the story implies that the dangerousness of the Outside is exaggerated in order to justify the government's control over the Net (draw your own paranoid analogies with the present). This has some fascinating consequences. For example, children make play dates over the Net and rely on VR projections to learn to socialize. Families meet each other through a kind of Net dating service for whole families, and though two families may be from opposite ends of the continent, they manage to sit down "together" to have dinner, the VR screen going down the middle of the table. (I actually kind of wish that were true. Why should I be stuck with the people who happen to have moved in next to me?) Since physically moving yourself and your possessions from one place to another is so expensive, once you are married you are pretty much truly stuck. The main character in the story had an affair over the Net because he connected with the woman he could only touch through the mediation of technology so much better than his wife, but when the affair was discovered he was too afraid of the Outside to join the other woman. In the end the other woman did in fact leave the protected life on the Net and go Outside, and she tantalizingly sent him the buttons from her blouse, inviting him to "come out and play." (The actual story is so much better than my crappy summary, sorry.) This is the story in the collection with the most un-sci-fi-ish prose style, but it actually works really well.
"Carthaginian Rose" is based on an idea from Ray Kurzweil's Age of Spiritual Machines. Basically, the idea is that we'll soon (as in within 30 years) be able to scan people's brains into computers powerful enough to simulate neural activities -- and instant immortality! The scanning technology initially will be kind of crude, and so we might need to do it destructively on some people to try it out (Kurzweil speculated that a person facing imminent death may volunteer to be the first test subject). The story takes this idea and speculates on what kind of person that first volunteer would be and how someone might be driven to happily, willingly, and even work hard at being destructively scanned.
The title story, "Empire of Dreams and Miracles," is probably the craziest story of the bunch. It involves a future so far off that people literally kill for sport (the victims are then brought back to life). The entertainment industry is centered around competition among the killer-artists to bring the most pleasure and novelty to each kill, and the psychology of a culture with no real death but a lot of colorful imitations of it is described with a great deal of detail and imagination. The images are eye-popping and they come at you one after another, giving you almost no time to absorb each one (so you end up feeling a little like the sensation-saturated inhabitants of this future). The fascination with violence, death, and the sexual energies in both can be seen as a satire of our own world or just really good mood setting.
"Who Lived in a Shoe" is about alien house hunting. For any slashdot readers who have looked for a dwelling the story will resonate. It's a funny, light piece that is less sci-fi than fantasy. Some of the houses that the main characters visit on their search may well appeal to the crowd here. This story shows the wide range and styles in this collection.
There are eight other stories in the collection, ranging from Twilight Zone-like horror to cosmology-as-religion. There are space stations and artificial intelligences, social commentary as well as pure fantasy. All of the stories are well-written short stories, not aborted attempts at novels or sketches that go nowhere. OSC wrote an introduction to each story and it's interesting to get his take on each.
To be sure, sometimes the writing in these stories is not as polished as one could wish, but you see that kind of roughness even in the mass-circulation magazines. After all, we are talking about sci-fi here, not the Atlantic Monthly. All in all, given the diverse range of ideas, characters, and styles in this collection and the fact that these are all fresh, new talents in the field, this is my second favorite short fiction anthology for the year (it was my first favorite anthology until Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life -- you just can't argue with all those Nebulas).
You can purchase Empire of Dreams and Miracles from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
And with the click of the mouse, your book is hurled from obscurity to the desktops of thousands of sci-fi geeks. Hooray!
Aside from Gene Wolfe, and Orson Scott Card, the Mormonist, where are the religious science fiction writers? Don't say they can't exist, there are religious programmers, like Larry Wall.
In the first story mentioned, "Twenty Two Buttons", a Catholic would laugh. Sorry, you can't get a consecrated host over the Net, a priest has to perform the miracle of Transubstiation, and you must get the host in person, after saying the secret Catholic password. So, Catholics would still need face to face meeting, sorry d00d.
The other story "Carthaginian Rose" completely ignores the existence of an immortal soul. You can't transfer a soul into a machine (Tracy Kidder's tome notwithstanding). Sorry, patently absurd.
I wish science fiction writers would think a little bit more about the world in which they inhabit, not everyone one is an introverted self hating geeek.
A. Rightmann
Certainly the stories described sound interesting. Although the themes for several sound more like amplifications than new ideas. I'm sure most of us can see links to "The Matrix" and "The Truman Show" in "Twenty-two Buttons".
As for the prime magazine comment, I think it's hard to break into the field because there is such a flood of junk that the editors do tend to give preference to those authors they have some reason to think can write a decent story.
I ran a semi-professional magazine (Radius) for a while, and while the funding was difficult, what really drove me out of the business was having to read through the slush pile. I'd get about 200 stories a month, and often would find only one or two that I could get all the way through. I can only imagine the headaches that the editors of "Asimov's" or "Analog" must get.
FWIW...
So getting some movie and TV people involved in a SF anthology qualifies as a "pedigree"? Can somebody explain the logic there? Why not get a horse trainer involved, or a skilled carpenter? They're equally relevant.
At least Card's for real. He hasn't written a line worth reading in years, but that doesn't mean his critical faculties have necessarily withered.
But listen here, listen: When people on Slashdot mistake TV drivel for SF, people who can read and write roll their eyes just like everybody else on Slashdot does when some jackass on CNN refers to a virus as a "computer bug".
Besides, even if Star Trek/Star Wars people were somehow names worth giving a damn about, so what? Their presence tells us nothing about the text. When you hire somebody to do cover art, you write a conctact and you send him a check when you see the deliverables. These guys do art for a living. If your money's green, they'll work for anybody.
The only people relevant to the quality of the thing are the people who wrote the stories and the editor who chose them. The rest is just marketing bullshit. Which Slashdot prides takes pride in ignoring. Ha ha ha.
I'm a regular reader of the sci-fi magazines, and I have to say, the stories in this collection are so much better than 95% of what gets published in those magazines.
My! You certainly have raised the bar for fiction! Good as the best 5% of science fiction magazine stories, you say!
Geez, that's just embarrassing.
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Adrew Greeley (a Catholic priest) has writen some science fiction. One that I've read is: Final Planet .
I suspect that your not so much interested in religious science fiction writers as much as science fiction writers religious in the same way you are
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I stopped reading stuff associated with OSC because of his obvious creationist agenda, and his less than subtle hints about what is right and what is wrong in his view of things.
He is an amazing storyteller but:
I don't like it when SF is used as a platform for pro-life/creationist crap.
By choosing SF as a 'genre' I assume that I can stay clear from writers with agendas like that, and I think that this can be qualified as 'false flag' deployment.
Of course writers are free to do so but then I'd rather send my cash somewhere else to support writers that have their feet a little more on the ground.
Next thing we know there will be SF without evolution and SF with 7 day creation bits in it.
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Note that religions do change to adjust with the times. It used to be that all Catholic masses were spoken in Latin; this is obviously no longer the case. Considering the state of the society described in the review, its not all that hard to imagine that the church might change its beliefs in order to better ensure the safety of its members.
In regards to the question of the immortal soul, why exactly can't a soul be transferred to a machine? Strictly speaking, the human body is a machine; its simply biological rather than mechanical.
Read Walter Miller, Jr. Canticle for St. Leibowitz should satisfy your religion. and good writing. he wrote a sequel a few (40 or so) years later, and it is good as well.
--------- Never ask a geek why, unles you REALLY want to know.
The publisher lists 100 science fiction books you have to read. Very good list. There's a few more by Greg Bear that I would love to add to that list, but then it wouldn't be as diverse as it is.
Howard Fast has written science fiction from a Buddhist perspective.
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I don't know if I should mod you up as funny, or down as flame-bait.
not everyone one is an introverted self hating geeek
You are right. Some of us are not catholic.
No, they're a bunch of self-loathing sinners.
They were one-hit wonders. Their great work was called "The Holy Bible".
Maybe between Virgin Birth, Immaculate Conception, Ressurection, Eternal Life, "the body of christ", in addition to the magical transformation of "one who has disagreed" to "the most supreme evil being in the universe" ala Lucifer, they've said all they wanted to say. You've still got all the sex, rape, genocide, and talking to other-wordly beings, too.
--mandi
Well not everyone has your views of what's absurd. These stories are fiction and what one writer could see as the future another my not see that at all. Time change, the future could end up in a number of infinite possibilites. That is the fun of sci-fi. There are plenty of visions I disagree with as well, but they can very well be good stories. Open up a little.
BTW, not trying to nitpick, I make spelling and grammar mistakes all the time but where you said "...patently absurd." Did you mean "blatantly" absurd or so absurd that it could be patented?
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
it might be the SCIENCE bit in science fiction that keeps the religious hordes away :)
Seriously though, there are tons of scientists that are also religious, I know that and I have no problem with that (though I'm glad I don't have to reconcile an internal belief system like religion with an in depth knowledge of cold hard science).
Fact is that the SF audience usually prefers to read stories that make one (or maybe two or so) assumptions about the way the future could develop and that religion is mostly trying to find its roots in the past rather than the present. There is some SF set in the past but not much and it usually stays miles away from any interference with religious characters or times.
(again, there are some exceptions here).
This alone precludes many would be religious people from writing SF because they would not be able or willing to solidly separate belief from assumption. If you can believe in an all powerful deity that creates whole universes in a couple of days and you and all your predecessors as an afterthought you probably don't need much more in the fiction department anyway.
A miracle is a very easy way out of any kind of situation, and the various religions have all kinds of history that testifies to their using just that in order to get themselves out of hairy stuff. (and persecution if that failed).
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He's written more fantasy than science fiction, but Tracy Hickman (co-creator of the Dragonlance series) is a member of the LDS (Mormon) church. The Darksword series he co-wrote with Margaret Weis has a few religious elements to it (and a slightly SF twist), but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for....
yeah... right next to the "toys are possessed by magic and go on a rampage in Los Angeles" section...
Those who read the Marvel comics in the 80's will be interested to know that one of the principals here is Jim Shooter, the Editor-in-Chief in those times.
Shooter is a very skilled editor, and a very good writer in his own right, altough his authoritary style made a lot of enemies at the time.
One can find more info and a biography here.
Um, what, exactly, does an immortal soul do? Name something that it provides, or function it performs, or some means that it makes its presence felt.
Damage to the brain damages self and consciousness in fundamental ways. People who suffer some kinds of strokes lose half their world, literally. They lose, for example, the concept of 'left'. They only eat half of what's on their plates. Ask them to imagine walking down their street, they only describe the houses on the right. Ask them to mentally "turn around", and they forget the houses they just described and start talking about the ones on the other side of the street.
Look up Broca's and Wernicke's Aphasia. People with Broca's aphasia can understand language, but can't speak. Damage another part of the brain, and you get Wernicke's aphasia, where they can speak, but can't understand. They speak in "word salad". They don't even realize they aren't making sense. Put two of them together and they'll have a whole conversation of nonsense.
The more you read up on neurological problems, the weirder it gets. (Almost any book by Oliver Sacks is good for this.) I don't know of an intellectual faculty that can't be damaged, if not eliminated, by damage to the brain.
If there is a soul, what can it do? Moreover, how can whatever's left after my brain is gone be called "me" in any real sense? Why should I care what happens to the soul when I die? All my memories, emotions, and consciousness seem tied up in my brain.
"To believe that consciousness can survive the wreck of the brain is like believing that 70 mph can survive the wreck of the car." - Frank Zindler
(This leads to a whole different problem with 'transmigrating' to a machine - that might be a perfect copy of me, but I would still be dead. But that's separate from any 'immortal soul' speculation.)
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Well, since I don't think the immortal soul exists, that's just fine by me. Of course, I bet you'd be one of the people who'd be all about turning uploaded people off and wiping their programs because they're not really people since they don't have an immortal soul. They be the newest group of people to suffer horribly under the gentle ministrations of those who don't consider them 'human'.
Sounds like the basis of a good SF story about religious nuts who get their jollies torturing virtual people. Would stand up to be the first in line to stand up to push the buttons to cause these people 'virtual' pain so you could watch them scream? After all, they have no souls, and can't really be in pain. It's just entertainment.
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It's here: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html.
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Isaac Asimov was well-known to be Jewish, and made no attempts to hide it. In fact, he once wrote and got published a book of Jewish science fiction, largely to prove it could be done. I don't remember the title of the collection any more, but one of the stories in it was, "The Mazel Tav Revolution". (I'm not sure of the spelling on "Tav", it might have been "Tof".)
Of course now Dr. A put his religion to the Ultimate Test some years ago.
Much of Frank Herbert Sr's work was religiously steeped, as was Phillip Jose Farmer's. I've never actually read any of it, but I get the impression that in contrast, L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction is strictly secular. (Let's not go further on this one, please.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I actually wasn't all that impressed by it simply because it could have been so much better. With Card as an editor I would have expected some better writing. The stories had great potential though. For the most part they just fell short of the mark for me. That said, it's definitely not one of those books you'll regret reading, but not going to be one of the best you ever read either. I think the reviewer is being a bit optomistic about the quality.
I'm more interested to see if Shadow Puppets is going to be any better than the last junk he's pushed out based on Ender's Game universe.
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> The other story "Carthaginian Rose" completely ignores the existence of an immortal soul. You can't transfer a soul into a machine (Tracy Kidder's tome notwithstanding). Sorry, patently absurd.
I don't see much evidence that you can put a soul into a body, either. Did you have some evidence that one is possible and the other isn't?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I haven't been able to find any reference for this, and sadly, unless Terry Bisson knows, it might be quite lost. The book was apparently completed by Bisson after Miller died, and there is on reading it, a slightly gummy feeling of amalgamation; I can't quite tell whether it was rewoven altogether from the author's notes, or merely brushed up and missing chapters/sections added.
More significantly, I wish I could tell whether the book, in general, was written shortly after, or perhaps 15 or 20 years after Canticle and left in some musty cabinet not to be discovered until after his passing; it would be illuminating to see which of the changes in writing style and theme resulted from Miller's changes in perspective over time, and what, was in fact Bisson.
It's even possible (from my reading) that the entire book was simply one chapter of Canticle that got left out of the original, or which the author might have written some time afterward, and not a stand-alone book, which Bisson felt he had to expand out to make it publishable.
The story itself is a minor historical footnote in the history of the Church after the flame deluge; as were nearly all of the stories from the original, and to me, its as breathtaking as any one of the earlier parts, but still doesn't feel like a Novel in its own right.
All of the previous is speculation; most of the reviews that I've seen assume it was a separate book written by Miller in the 1990s, and handed specifically to Bisson on his deathbed. I haven't found any of Bisson's words on the matter, if anyone here does know, I'd really love to hear.
First, nothing begins if not opening
See, this is your problem...you see science as cold and hard. Science is, of course, warm and cuddly!
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> Seriously though, there are tons of scientists that are also religious
That goes uncontested, though it would be interesting to know whether there are any productive scientists who are religious fanatics.
> Fact is that the SF audience usually prefers to read stories that make one (or maybe two or so) assumptions about the way the future could develop and that religion is mostly trying to find its roots in the past rather than the present. There is some SF set in the past but not much and it usually stays miles away from any interference with religious characters or times. (again, there are some exceptions here).
Religion appears frequently in Jack Vance's SF. Almost aways as the butt of satire, though.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The other story "Carthaginian Rose" completely ignores the existence of an immortal soul. You can't transfer a soul into a machine (Tracy Kidder's tome notwithstanding). Sorry, patently absurd.
Hmmm... not, however, quite so absurd as the idea of an intangible, immortal soul.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Minor correction: it's called A Canticle for Leibowitz, not St. Leibowitz
I haven't read it, but I'm curious if the characters are the same characters he usually recycles from the Ender series (Different names, same characteristics).
In Terry Bisson's own words:
First, nothing begins if not opening
In Catholic theology, priests do not perform the miracle of transubstantiation (please note the correct spelling). Only God can perform miracles. The Church -- the people of the Catholic faith -- IS the incarnation of Christ and God. The priest is nothing more than a person who officiates the sacrament.
Just as priests can officiate private masses (as monastic priests will often do), there is nothing really preventing "tele-sacraments". Many masses are already broadcast to different buildings or rooms when the physical facilities are not enough to accomodate everyone of the Church community in the same physical presence. People have received the eucharist in their homes for more than a millenium when they were too ill or infirm to make it to the public Mass.
As a Catholic theologian, I can easily see Catholic practice shaping itself to fit in a world as described in "Twenty Two Buttons." I certainly wouldn't invite such a world, or such changes to the practice of sacraments in the Church, but it is not laughable.
As for the issue of transferring an immortal soul to a machine, I'm not clear on what theological grounds you are making such an assertion.
The body is the vessel of the sacred soul, and both body and soul are resurrected in the rapture. I won't question that human bodies are sacred.
Nonetheless, there are theological accomodations already for people who have incomplete bodies -- either from birth or from accident. A person with an artificial heart or without legs won't be left behind during the resurrection simple because their physical body is incomplete. In the resurrection we will all have bodies in the image and likeness of God, as Adam and Eve were in Eden. Who is to say that there can't be a transfer of one's consciousness and soul to a machine in a medical emergency? How is this different from someone who has had a heart transplant, or who gets artificial limbs?
Impossible?
The Catholic Church is all about the celebration of the impossible.
God became a regular man. Ridiculous.
God died. Absurd.
The dead God came back from the dead. Impossible.
This incarnation, death, and resurrection is played out again in a substantial way every day through the sacraments. Laughable.
These are the tenets of Catholicism.
it would be interesting to know whether there are any productive scientists who are religious fanatics.
I'm not really sure what your definition of fanatic is, but every few years, a poll is done to measure religious attitudes among scientists. The Washington Post had a story on it quite a while back...here are some highlights that should let you make up your own mind...
These contemporary researchers found that about four in 10 randomly selected scientists two years ago professed belief "in a personal God," almost exactly the same proportion as in 1916, Bishop reported.
One key result from the current study to a question that wasn't asked in 1916: More than half - 55 percent - endorsed the Darwinian view that "humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process."
Bishop notes, however, that "a surprisingly large percentage (40 percent) subscribed to the 'theistic evolutionist' idea that 'humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including humankind's creation.'" Only 5 percent endorsed a creationist view that God created humans "pretty much in their present form at one time within the past 10,000 years."
(Emphasis added by me)
Original Washington Post Article
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
Roger Zelazny did several books from various religious perspectives also, for example "Lord of Light," all from a decidedly SF perspective of course.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
The other story "Carthaginian Rose" completely ignores the existence of an immortal soul. You can't transfer a soul into a machine (Tracy Kidder's tome notwithstanding). Sorry, patently absurd.
If I had mod points today, I would have marked the post troll. To me the above is akin to saying "flying pigs can't possibly break the sound barrier. That's absurd."
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never should have received degrees in the first place. The idea that truth can be received from some magic book passed down from a bunch of characters in robes a couple of thousand years ago flies in the face of the whole concept of determining truth through experimentation and observation. I wonder how many of this 5% of "scientists" really do hard science and how many are just technicians and/or practitioners of soft "sciences" like psychology. As for evolution being directed from outside, this was pretty much the idea of Henri Bergson expressed in his book, "Creative Evolution."
"Only 5 percent endorsed a creationist view that God created humans 'pretty much in their present form at one time within the past 10,000 years.'"
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
Um, what, exactly, does an immortal soul do? Name something that it provides, or function it performs, or some means that it makes its presence felt.
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- Louis Armstrong
They be the newest group of people to suffer horribly under the gentle ministrations of those who don't consider them 'human'.
An AI shouldn't "suffer" at all when it's shut down or deleted. It might not be moral or humane to do so, but the AI doesn't suffer, it simply stops existing.
Sounds like the basis of a good SF story about religious nuts who get their jollies torturing virtual people. Would stand up to be the first in line to stand up to push the buttons to cause these people 'virtual' pain so you could watch them scream? After all, they have no souls, and can't really be in pain. It's just entertainment.
You're talking about sadists, not religious people.
Religous folks only enjoy pain when it's a sign of someone growing. A sinner showing pain at their sins is an improvement upon the sinner who does not, as they're one step closer on the road to not-sinning.
The folk who actually enjoy torture, in my experience, have been very, very non-religious. After all, if it's not a sin and they can't be harmed for it, why not?
Mr. Chiang is apparently very busy - not only has he done this cover and design direction for the Star Wars prequels, apparently he also did the design work for the starships in the new MMORPG Earth and Beyond. I can't judge the impressiveness of his resume; but I can say that's quite a bit of recent work.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
I remember reading a story in an old anthology. I don't remember exactly how old, but I think it would be the early 1960s at the very latest. It was about a society in which teleportation had become the norm; their teleporters were called Doors (capital D). The protagonist is a schoolboy; one day his family's Door stops working. They call for service but it's going to be a few days, so he has to go outside (through the small-d door, which confuses him) and get to school that way. He gets a cold, which terrifies his mother, but he starts to enjoy the outdoors - which earns him strong disapproval from his family. I don't remember exactly how it ends.
Does anyone remember this story? Anyone know what it was called, or who wrote it?
-Graham
hi! ok, I'm a delany #1 fan, but dhalgren is a truly awesome reading experience. it's a good bit different than nova and triton (which I think are very different, between themselves!) but that's just me.
"Twenty-two buttons" reminds me of 1983's ORA:CLE. Everybody stays at home because there are aliens (pterodactyl-like, "dacs") around that hunt humans for sport. Besides the Earth is covered with trees to fight CO2. There are mass-transmisors in every home but for wares and non-living things only.
The main role is an expert in Chinese history who earns a living doing teleconsulting. There is a worldwide net with micropayments. There are very often tele-elections and referendums on lots of issues.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Masamune Shirow manages to combine hardboiled SWAT action with solid discussions of human spirituality, in a tale of postapocalyptic utopia that is anything but typical of the genre. Pick up Appleseed wherever fine comics are sold!
If you can see the religion in Card's works, you should have no problem finding it in the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks. Fair warning, though: Banks comes at it from the opposite direction.HTH. HAND!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Times change, people change. The Vatican can hold council and change Church laws if things are getting out of hand.
In any case, look for "Least of my Brethren" by Michael Stackpole, it's Catholic Science Fiction.
Not that I'm Catholic or Christian or even religious at all, I just remember that you made this post and it was an interesting story after all.
[o]_O
I'm still undecidied if the parent is a liar or a real fanatic, Ferniscowles.
That "secret Catholic password" might be the tip over into the "false catholic" catagory--or he might just be referring to a part of the ceremony that's not on the handouts.