Just The Caffeine Talking

An Old-Fashioned Science Fiction Gathering (Day 2)

On Sunday the 27th, most of the participants rose early (since both the Hartwell and Cambias households involve young children who think that sleeping past 7:30 is "late"). We breakfasted at one of the inns in Westport called The Inn In Westport, then gathered again at the bookstore to watch David Hartwell interview Gregory Benford.

Mr. Benford spoke about growing up as an army brat in Japan and Germany, his career as a physicist, and the utility of being a twin ("I've got a backup copy"). Like many fans of his generation, he published a fanzine in his teens. Studying astrophysics at the University of California in the mid-1960s means that he got to meet just about all the giants of postwar physics. All this interesting autobiography meant that the interview didn't really touch on literary technique very much.

After a break for lunch, I did a reading of my own work. I started with "Makeover," which appeared in Nature in 2009. Because I catastrophically misjudged the time available, I finished with the better part of an hour left and nothing else to read. Happily, Diane Kelly spotted a copy of the anthology Crossroads on the bookstore shelf, so I took it down and read "See My King All Dressed In Red."

We re-empaneled to talk about "Invention in Science Fiction." This was an interesting panel because my opinion completely reversed early in the discussion. When I sat down, I was thinking that science fiction writers aren't engineers (except for the ones who are, of course), and so should not try to describe future gadgets. Instead, I thought, they should focus on future societies and the effects of technology.

But in the light of our earlier discussion of utopias and dystopias (or "Yourtopias" vs. "Mytopias") I decided that I had it exactly backwards. A writer who tries to describe a future piece of technology will either come up with something interesting, or not. But a writer who describes a future society based on his own personal ideology is in danger of becoming a boring propagandist.

Am I saying that we should all revert to writing Gernsbackian gadget stories? No. But I am saying there may be as much -- or more -- value in imagining future gadgets which real-life inventors can try to make real, than in imagining future societies which real-life activists can try to bring about. Quite simply, the body count from new gadgets tends to be lower.

Diane had to leave at that point, but I remained to watch Kathryn Cramer interview Elisabeth Malartre. She talked about her conservation work, and what it's like sharing a house with several thousand superpowered fruit flies. Gregory Benford then wrapped up the formal programming by reading a very interesting work in progress called "Leaving Night."

The sky outside was getting dark and threatening, so I decided to head home before the rain arrived. If there were any drunken brawls, shocking revelations, or experiments in polyamory that evening, you'll have to wait for someone else to reveal them.

Overall, this was a tremendously fun and stimulating weekend. I got home with a list of topics to email people about, a couple of ideas for future projects of my own, and a huge boost in my own enthusiasm. For me, anyway, that's one of the primary benefits of science fiction gatherings: they're like pep rallies for writers. This one was a roaring success.

An Old-Fashioned Science Fiction Gathering (Day 1)

Over the weekend of May 25-27 I was a guest of David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer at their bookstore in Westport, NY. The occasion was a "mini-con" devoted to Hard Science Fiction.

The headliner on the card was Gregory Benford, who inspired the theme of the weekend with his famous remark about writing Hard SF being like playing tennis with the net up. (He admits he paraphrased it from Robert Frost describing free verse.) With one of science fiction's heavyweights present and two legendary editors as hosts, I was a little intimidated. (But only a little, thanks to my magnificent ego.)

Whenever I read memoirs of the early decades of science fiction, I'm always a little envious. They didn't have huge conventions with velvet ropes to separate the fans from the pros (and the minor-league pros from the big guys). Conventions in the pre-Trekkie era were often just a gathering at someone's house, with maybe a pilgrimage to the local movie palace and dinner at a convenient restaurant. Scrappy youngsters like Harlan Ellison or Samuel R. Delany would argue happily with established names like Fred Pohl or John W. Campbell.

Well, now I can say I know what those gatherings were like.

Westport, New York, is a little town on the western shore of Lake Champlain, within the boundaries of Adirondack State Park. The drive up wasn't hard, though after an hour or so on the road I did start to wonder if quaint New England towns were assembled from some kind of standard kit.

The event started on Saturday morning with a panel discussion on "Playing With the Net Up," which riffed off Mr. Benford's remark and the role of the Internet. Kathryn Cramer made the interesting point that while the 'Net makes research easier, it also makes it possible for readers to pounce on nonexistent errors in stories.

Note that when I call this a "panel discussion" it doesn't mean the usual convention program event with Authors sitting behind nameplates at a table at the head of the room talking to Other People sitting in rows of chairs facing them. This was actually a pretty free-form conversation involving everyone in the room. Other participants included (naturally) David Hartwell, visualization guru Brad Paley, well-known editor and fan Ann Crimmins, Elisabeth Malartre, and (later in the day) biologist and science writer Diane A. Kelly.

We resumed after lunch with an interview. Gregory Benford asked me to explain my writing methods, and wanted to know what stories of mine are my personal favorites. The flippant answer to that was "whatever I just finished," but after a little more thought I picked "Parsifal (Prix Fixe)" and "Balancing Accounts" as the ones I'm most proud of.

Elisabeth Malartre then read her story "Words, Words, Words" which originally ran in Nature magazine's "Futures" department. It's best described as a Hard-SF fantasy story, and we all enjoyed it. She also discussed her story "Evolution Never Sleeps," an ecology story about chipmunks developing some unpleasant but adaptive behaviors.

Late in the afternoon we reconvened for another panel about technological optimism, utopias, and happy endings. The underlying inspiration for this discussion was Neal Stephenson's essay "Innovation Starvation," calling for science fiction writers to return to technological optimism in a conscious attempt to inspire the next generation of innovators. I believe it was Gregory Benford who suggested the useful distinction among "Mytopia" and "Yourtopia" and "Histopia": one person's idea of a perfect society might match someone else's idea of a living nightmare. Given that, how can SF writers resume their role as propagandists for the future when we can't agree on what that future should be?

After that we knocked off for drinks and dinner, then a backyard tent reading by Kathryn Cramer as the stars came out.

Next: Day 2!

Ozblogging: The Emerald City of Oz, Part 3

Since Aunt Em and Uncle Henry have come to Oz for good, it only makes sense for them to see some of the country. Accordingly, Dorothy, the Wizard, Em and Henry, Omby Amby (the commander of Oz's all-officer Army), Billina the Hen, and the Shaggy Man all set out aboard a wagon drawn by the Sawhorse on a tour of Oz. Fasten your seat belts: L. Frank Baum is about to embark on an epic spree of Wacky Wayside Tribes.

Their first stop is at the Royal Athletic College of Oz, run by Professor H.M. Wogglebug, T.E. It's called an Athletic College because the students devote all their time to sports. Actual education is taken in the form of School Pills, devised by the Wizard. There's a pill for each subject, and a single dose is the equivalent of four hours of study.

This has got to be a jab at the University of Chicago, which L. Frank Baum lived near for several years during its brief period as a sports powerhouse at the turn of the century.

After the College, the party proceeds to visit the Cuttenclips, a village of living paper dolls. Because they are easily blown over, they have strict rules against any visitors stirring up drafts. The creator of the Cuttenclips is Miss Cuttenclip, a normal human girl about Dorothy's age. She makes her living dolls from magical paper provided by Glinda the Good. That's right, Glinda casually passes out the ability to create a whole species of intelligent beings.

The visit to the Cuttenclips comes to an abrupt end when the Shaggy Man lets out an especially powerful sneeze which devastates the entire village. Leaving chaos and destruction in their wake, the party moves on.

Their next stop is the village of Fuddlecumjig, inhabited by the Fuddles. Where the Cuttenclips were sentient paper dolls, the Fuddles are living jigsaw puzzles. Each one is made of hundreds of pieces, and under stress they fly apart. They depend on the kindness of passing strangers (including our heroes and, for some reason, a talking kangaroo) to get reassembled. A little Meat Glue would seem to be just what the Fuddles need, but Mr. Baum hasn't gotten around to thinking of that yet.

The Fuddles are pleasant enough once reassembled, and give their visitors a meal before sending them on their way.

Meanwhile . . .

General Guph pays his final diplomatic visit, to the creepiest and most Lovecraftian of Baum's creations, the dread Phanfasms of Mount Phantastico. The Phanfasms are Erbs. You don't know what Erbs are? Well, Baum isn't going to tell you, but he does mention that they are so fearsome that nobody, mortal or immortal, has dared to visit their mountain for several thousand years.

Not that they make it easy for visitors: Guph has to cross a river of lava infested by poisonous salamanders, then get past a scarlet alligator on the narrow bridge. Then he meets his first Phanfasm, who looks like a savage man with the head of an owl.

The owl-headed Phanfasm takes Guph to the First and Foremost of the Phanfasms, who lives in a crude hut of rocks and has a bear's head. The First and Foremost drags him into the hut to hear his offer -- but Guph has the strange feeling that he's not inside a dark little hut at all, but a vast space in which hundreds of eyes are watching him.

Guph makes his offer, and the First and Foremost laughs at it. Worse yet, Guph hears a multitude of others also laughing, even though he's apparently alone in the hut with the bear-headed man.

The Phanfasms are scornful of the Nomes and their other allies, even the alarming Growleywogs. The First and Foremost shows Guph why: he takes the form of a beautiful woman, and all the hundreds of other Phanfasms become fierce wolves. Then she becomes a giant butterfly while the others turn into lizards. Finally they resume their animal-headed disguises, and the First and Foremost asks Guph what he can offer that the powers of the Phanfasms cannot already accomplish.

Guph has an answer. The people of Oz are happy. By helping to destroy them, the Phanfasms will have the pleasure of spreading unhappiness and misery, which they dearly love to do. The First and Foremost is pleased with this answer and agrees to join the alliance.

But once Guph leaves, the crude huts on the mountaintop are replaced by a mighty and beautiful city, and the Phanfasms take on beautiful forms to discuss the matter among themselves. The First and Foremost announces that there's no reason to stop with simply conquering and enslaving the people of Oz. Once that's done they'll wipe out the Whimsies, Growleywogs, and the Nomes, as an appetizer before going on to "ravage and annoy and grieve the whole world."

Guph hasn't just gained an ally against Oz; he has opened the door to Hell.

The chapter ends with one of my favorite lines in the Oz books. "I am told that the Erbs are the most powerful and merciless of all the evil spirits, and the Phanfasms of Phantastico belong to the race of Erbs."

Here L. Frank Baum shows us a hint of what might have been. If he had ever tried to write a genuine adult fantasy, what could he have accomplished?  The Phanfasms are mysterious and frightening, very different from the whimsical paper-doll people and jigsaw-puzzle people. With just a sentence Baum implies so much: the existence of other types of Erbs, some possibly worse than even the Phanfasms. There's a momentary chill breeze of Lovecraftian horror, for the magical realm of Oz also holds monsters -- monsters with inifinite powers of shapeshifting and illusion. What are their real forms? Do they even have "real" forms at all?

The Erbs are a marvelous hint at a much bigger fantasy world than Baum has showed us so far . . . and he never used them again. It wasn't until 1946 when Jack Snow, one of several "Royal Historians of Oz" to continue the series, used another bunch of sinister Erbs as the shapeshifting invaders of The Magical Mimics in Oz.

I haven't read that one, but I may try to track down a copy. It sounds as though Mr. Snow also felt the little thrill of fear and wonder in that one sentence of Baum's. (A little research indicates that Snow was a Weird Tales contributor when he wasn't being a radio writer and obsessive Oz fan. Sadly, he died at just 49 years old before the fantasy boom of the 1960s. You can read one of his Weird Tales stories here: this little bit of sadism was written shortly after The Magical Mimics in Oz!)

Next time: more strange discoveries.

Ozblogging: The Emerald City of Oz, Part 2

Ozma uses her magic to summon Dorothy's Aunt Em and Uncle Henry right into her throne room. They are, understandably enough, completely freaked out by the sight of such an opulent room crowded with strange beings -- including a gigantic lion and tiger. Dorothy reassures them that they're perfectly safe before either one can drop dead of a heart attack.

I always found the arrival of Em and Henry to be a little awkward, and I think I've figured out why. In all their previous appearances, Dorothy's aged aunt and uncle are adults. They are reassuring symbols of normality. Dorothy enters the "realm of adventure" whenever she is separated from them, and undergoes perils and hardships, but when she is with them, all is well.

Emerald City completely flips that. Kansas is now the place of peril, and Em and Henry are the ones threatened with hardship, from which Dorothy can deliver them. But in the process, of course, Em and Henry are diminished. They become a pair of comic yokels -- Ma and Pa Kettle Visit the Emerald City.

I don't know if this was deliberate on Baum's part or not. It does reflect part of growing up. Dorothy is now effectively the adult in the family, despite being . . . however old she is. (By the calendar she should be fifteen or sixteen, but judging by Baum's descriptions and Neill's illustrations she's no more than ten. Moving her to Oz solves this particular problem, since from now on Dorothy will never age, no matter what year it is.) Her affectionate but slightly patronizing attitude toward her aunt and uncle is exactly that of a twentysomething toward his parents.

Of course, by bringing her entire family to Oz and abandoning Kansas as a place of final refuge, Dorothy has committed them to share the fate of Oz, and that fate is suddenly in danger.

The Nome King's able henchman General Guph turns out to be a very skillful diplomat. While the Nome King puts a thousand miners to work digging a tunnel under the Deadly Desert surrounding Oz, Guph ventures forth to recruit allies for the invasion.

The first people he visits are the Whimsies. It's hard to be fearsome when you are called "Whimsies" but these guys manage it. They are huge and strong, but have tiny heads, no bigger than doorknobs. Consequently they are pretty stupid. Ashamed of their chronic microcephaly, the Whimsies wear large, gaudy false heads made of pasteboard. In other words, they're a race of giant retarded psycho clowns. Fearsome enough?

The Chief of the Whimsies receives Guph fairly cordially, and hears out his proposal. Despite having a doorknob for a head, he is shrewd enough to ask what's in the whole invasion of Oz for his people. Guph has a ready answer: when the Nome King gets his Magic Belt back, he will use it to magically give the Whimsies real heads in proportion to their bodies, instead of the disturbing fakes. The Whimsies are ecstatic about this hope of a change, and agree.

Guph's next diplomatic coup is to bring the Growleywogs into his Axis of Evil. Growleywogs are even bigger than Whimsies, and their bodies are nothing but ropy muscle and bone, making them the strongest creatures in the world. More importantly, they aren't mindless at all -- they're clever and sadistic. Guph offers them twenty thousand Oz people as slaves once the kingdom is conquered, and the Growleywogs imprison him while they discuss the offer. The jailer sticks pins in the General and pulls out his beard hairs with tweezers to pass the time.

The Growleywogs are shrewd enough to realize that if the Nomes can't conquer Oz without their help, that means that presumably the Growleywogs are also powerful enough to conquer the Nomes, too. So the Grand Gallipoot of the Growleywogs decides to accept Guph's offer of alliance -- but plans to double-cross the Nomes and take them as slaves, too. Guph is making some pretty Faustian bargains here, and the worst is yet to come.

Given the benefit of hindsight, it's tempting to wonder if Baum was satirizing the burgeoning system of international alliances which was dividing Europe into two hostile camps. Back in 1882 Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Triple Alliance, uniting the center of Europe in a powerful mutual-defense pact. In response, Russia and France formed an anti-German alliance in 1892, and in 1904 and 1907 the United Kingdom established formal treaties of alliance with both of them, bringing three of Europe's greatest powers into a "Triple Entente." A variety of bilateral agreements gradually brought most of the the world's middleweight powers into the system on one side or another. The chief holdout was the United States.

Was Baum satirizing the way the Europeans were feverishly trying to line up allies against each other? Or was he subtly warning that America's isolation might not protect her forever -- that the Atlantic and Pacific weren't any better protection than Oz's Deadly Desert against a determined league of foreign foes?

The Emerald City of Oz can be seen as a slightly unconventional entry in what was a thriving literary sub-genre in the first decade of the 20th Century: the genre of "invasion literature." Invasion stories were more common in Great Britain than in America, but as international tensions rose every country saw the publication of novels depicting villainous foreigners overrunning the beloved homeland. Most of them have vanished into obscurity, but another weird outlier has gone on to classic status: H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, which became a taproot of the entire science fiction genre.

Next time: things get decidedly more strange, both within and beyond Oz.

Ozblogging: The Emerald City of Oz, Part 1

The Emerald City of Oz (1910) was L. Frank Baum's sixth Oz book, and marks a major departure from the stock plot he used in the previous three stories. Where all the books after Land of Oz involve Dorothy traveling to Oz and having adventures en route, Emerald City permanently installs Dorothy and her family in Oz. From here on out, they aren't what the Encyclopedia of Fantasy calls "portal fantasies," they're self-contained adventures in a world of magic.

That in itself would only be moderately interesting, but Emerald City has another, more important departure from past formula: suspense!

Our story begins not with Dorothy or anyone in the magical land of Oz, but in the subterranean lair of Baum's greatest villain, Roquat the Nome King. Roquat is unhappy because the Oz Expeditionary Force defeated him back in Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy took half his power when she confiscated his Magic Belt. The Nome King wants revenge, and won't tolerate any naysayers. When his Chief Counselor tells him not to be so angry, the King has his guards tie the Counselor up and throw him away.

There are two chief obstacles to the King's desire for revenge. The first is the Deadly Desert which surrounds Oz, and the second is the powerful magic of Ozma and Glinda (including the Magic Belt itself, parked in the Emerald City).

Roquat's chief military advisor, General Blug, suggests digging under the desert, which delights the King, but when Blug refuses to go up against Ozian magic (Nomes are not good at magic), Roquat has him thrown away as well.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch -- or in this case, back on Uncle Henry's farm in Kansas, there's financial trouble. Uncle Henry can't meet his mortgage payments and the bank is going to foreclose. Worse yet, they're both getting too old to support themselves. Dorothy is struck by the paradox that she's a Princess of Oz, a land where jewels and gold are as common as asphalt, but her family in Kansas can't pay their debts. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em are understandably skeptical about this, but Dorothy goes ahead and makes her secret signal to Ozma at four o'clock that afternoon and promptly vanishes.

Where would popular fiction be without mortgages? If you need a reason for a wacky scheme, a treasure hunt, a high-stakes card game, or a benefit show in the old barn featuring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, your local financial institution is always ready to help. Nobody ever declares bankruptcy or restructures the loan. It's pay or die, typically with a ridiculous deadline.

Once in Oz, Dorothy explains the problem. Ozma agrees that the obvious solution is to move the whole Gale household to Oz permanently. Dorothy can be a full-time Princess, she won't spend weeks every year getting shanghaied back to Oz, and her aged aunt and uncle won't have to work themselves into the grave. Ozma decides to wish Henry and Em to Oz the very next day. Dorothy's troubles are over!

Except that they aren't. The Nome King is still bent on revenge. He needs a new General (having thrown away the previous one in a fit of pique), so he offers to promote the next officer in line, Colonel Crinkle. But when Crinkle also refuses to undertake the invasion, Roquat has him purged: "Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed hm to the seven-headed dogs." Darth Vader's got nothing on Roquat for underling turnover.

That's what makes an effective leader: don't tolerate negativity, motivate your subordinates, and always look for new perspectives.

The Nome King appoints a new commander, a cranky old Nome named Guph. General Guph has the Right Stuff. He's willing to undertake the conquest of Oz and he's comfortable with the threat of getting sliced if he fails. He always shows supreme confidence in himself and his mission.

With nice strategic insight, Guph realizes that since the Nomes can't overcome Ozian magic on their own, they will need allies. He sets out on a diplomatic tour to assemble an Axis of Evil while the hard-working Nomes begin digging the invasion tunnel. Back in Oz, nobody suspects a thing . . .

Out For Pizza: Epilogue

What did we learn from this trip?

1. Plan for bad weather. Even if it seems highly unlikely, plan for it anyway. We went to the driest, sunniest part of Italy, and got rained on. Next time I travel, I'm definitely bringing a sweater and some form of rain gear. Packing my sweater this time was a last-minute impulse and I was very glad of it on several occasions. Also: plan the trip schedule so you can possibly shift activities around to nicer days (see below).

2. Build in a "spare" day. For us, this was the day we spent strolling around Naples. If necessary, that could have been the Archaeology Museum day. A spare day also lets you devote time to something you hadn't known about in advance. Similarly, don't plan on doing anything the day you arrive. Rest up from your flight, get your bearings, take in the scenery.

3. Refrigeration. This isn't optional for us, as Diane needs a refrigerator for her insulin, but being able to buy breakfast and lunch items at a grocery (at grocery prices) is very convenient and a huge money-saver. (Plus it's interesting to nose around the grocery shelves in another country.) This lets you save up your time and money for big fancy meals.

4. Age nine is old enough for overseas travel. Robert was able to keep up with the rest of us physically, and was interested in the things we saw. Just make sure there's gelato available.

5. Exchange some money before you go. My own bank gave me a very good rate on Euros, and often banks will waive the transaction fee if you've got an account there. It meant that we didn't have to worry about getting cash, or about getting shafted by the currency exchange office in the airport, or when they'd be open, or any of that.

I plan to apply all these to our next trip, when we brave the exotic and possibly hostile wilds of upstate New York. Does anyone know what they use for money there?