Living on a farm for more than twenty years makes you sleep lightly. That is, I sleep well, but any sound that’s out of the usual tends to have me drift towards being more awake and aware until it’s identified. Then I drift back down to solidly asleep again. I never come completely awake unless I can’t identify the noise. If I can’t then I do wake up and listen, it may be one of my animals in trouble, in which case I’ll be up, dressed and out of the door in 2-3 minutes. The best example of this I can tell was several years ago in the early hours when the ‘alert’ section of my brain noted footsteps running towards the house. Someone hammered several times on the wall by my bedroom window and I was awake so fast that I was calling back to them by about the third thump.
In a way this ties in with the book review I’ve just done (of Jack McDevitt’s Firebird) in which I said that people don’t change, we’re the same as we were thousands of years ago, it’s our surroundings that we alter. And after my ‘alert’ signalled last night that in the distance one of my lambs was bawling, after I’d come awake, dressed, gone out and found that the daft little critter had got himself stuck in the fence, got him out, watched an ecstatic mother and child reunion in the moonlight, gone back to bed and fallen right back into sleep…I feel a kinship with those ancient people who probably had the same ‘alert’ and, while they probably had different reasons to deal with why the lamb was crying for help, would have acted as I did.
It wasn’t much, half an hour out of my night, not uncommon for a farmer, even one like me who has only a few acres and a flock of ten sheep. (Two cattle, 11 hens, a rooster, 2 bantams, 4 geese – and probably two piglets come winter.) But I paused to look over my paddocks in the moonlight and admire the silent land, to smile at the lamb now catching up on his drinking, to be sleepily muttered at by the geese, and I went back inside feeling a link over the centuries with every farmer who’s done that. The machinery may change, but the land remains, and a farmer is a farmer, now, in the future – or ten thousand years ago – and the continuity is pleasant to contemplate.
The Sounds of Silence
FIREBIRD by Jack McDevitt.
an ‘Alex Benedict’ novel, hardcover, published ACE November 2011. Reviewed by Lyn McConchie.
I don’t think that it’s any secret that I love Jack’s work. I like some of his books more than others, but I’ve never found any of them to be less than very good. The ‘Alex Benedict’ series has been fun, clever, and interesting up to this book, but with this one it’s become seriously involving. The earlier books were adventure, this one has slowed to take a serious look at some of the human interactions behind the adventure, and – fascinatingly – what the loss of someone you care about, without any way of resolving that loss, can mean.
Before Alex’s assistant, Chase Kolpath, joined Alex, she worked for his uncle. He was one of those who (over centuries) boarded a space ship which then vanished and was never seen or heard from again. There seem to be two schools of thought about such events. Either the ships were destroyed, or they weren’t. And if some weren’t then those ships may still be out there, beyond time, the new Flying Dutchmen of the space era.
And that’s the theory of Dr. Christopher Robin, who died in a major quake but not before he’d talked extensively of his theory. His widow has also died and now her sister is selling many of Doctor Robin’s artefacts. She comes to Alex and Chase to discuss that sale, and as they begin negotiations they find out more and more about Robin’s death – which may not have been a death, or if it was, was it accident or murder – because there are wheels within wheels, and some people have an axe to grind.
This books covers a lot of bases, it’s an adventure, a mystery, SF, and an in-depth look at some of the possible aspects humans could face in the future, if or when some SF possibilities come true. Humans don’t change that much. We change things around us, we learn new tricks, but we ourselves aren’t much different from what we were when we first gathered to live in villages. If you took a baby from that era and raised it in our now, that child would be as civilized (or uncovilized) as we are, it would use iphones, computers, and SKYPE to the manner born. And in three or four thousand years when we are spread over a hundred other worlds, and have house AIs, personal spaceships, and vacation casually on other worlds, we might do well to remember that we haven’t really changed. Only our surroundings have altered.
This book makes you consider that point, as well as being a great SF adventure, with characters I’ve come to know and really like in the previous five of this series. How much did I think of it? Enough to go on line as soon as I could and nominate it for the Nebula. Enough to recommend it to anyone who likes SF/adventure/ and something that goes deeper into what makes us people. And enough for it to go on on my bookshelves in the happy knowledge that I can re-read and reread it. I can’t say better than that.
Warning, subconscious on the loose!
And yes, mine seems to have gone a bit mad this last couple of weeks. I had the idea for a short story about 12 days ago. Scribbled down the basic plot and went off to do something that had to be done outside. Sat down and found I had a second plot. Scribbled that down, and got started writing the first one into a short story. Looked at my timetable – that can become clogged around this time of year – and settled that I’d write another story three days later when I had time. Before I could do that a third plot appeared, was captured, and finally I got down to writing story two. Got both away to suitable markets and just as I was about to write story three, plot four popped up. Deciding that before I was left behind I’d catch up on all of this, I sat down two days in a row and wrote stories three and four, got them away – and found that plots five and six have now eventuated and been captured. It reminds me of a woman who was at a talk I did last year. After the meeting she asked me a number of question with the final one being “Tell me? Do you ever have writer’s block?” My answer was a resounding “No!”
There Are Times I wonder About People
And what I wonder is if some of them think at all. In Toronto Canada some schools have the kilt as school uniform for girls. Apparently many of the girls hitch their kilts up well above the knee contravening school policy and public decency. So the school board authorities (covering a number of schools in their district) are considering banning the kilt. Huh?
What do they plan to replace it with? Tunics and dresses can just as easily be hitched up. If they are thinking of putting the girls into trousers there’ll then be the option of wearing them as low-riders, or so tight they appear painted onto adolescent buttocks.
What they need is not a change in uniform, but school reinforcement of the already-in-place rules on skirt length. And get the parents onside with that. A girl should know that if the school punishes her for disobeying the rules, her parent/s will do the same. But in the end let’s have some common sense about this. The authorities may also have to realise, that short of a guard allocated to each girl so long as she is in school uniform, some laws are impossible to police everywhere at all times. Girls will be girls. I know – I was one.
Petrella At Q by Michael Gilbert
a collection of the ‘Patrick Petrella” stories published in hardcover by H&S in 1977, and reviewed by Lyn McConchie.
I’m taking it easy on the reading side by rereading all the books I have by a favourite author. Michael Gilbert was a brilliant writer, he produced a string of books and story collections for over 60 years (starting in 1946) none of which was a dud and which range from very good to brilliant. He wrote mysteries/police procedurals/crime/thrillers and spy stories. They aren’t the books and stories you see too many of nowadays, with cardboard characters, ultra violence, sadistic sex, and damn all plot. Where the only “mystery” is how many women will be kidnapped/beaten/raped/tortured and murdered before the hero finds the bad guy.
Gilbert’s characters were real people, often trapped in real situations, and his books hold up despite the earliest being published in the 40’s and 50’s. One of his series characters was Patrick Petrella, son of a high-ranking Spanish policemen, and an upper-class English girl. Patrick joined the London police force and in a series of books and short stories published over decades, policed the streets of his city, married, sired children, rose through the ranks, and finally retired. Petrella comes across as a real person as do his comrades around him and the criminals with which they deal. He can exhibit flashes of humour or anger, and in one story, a lethal rage when his small son is kidnapped to put pressure on Patrick. The stories about him in this collection have plots that range from the trivial (Rough Justice – the undoing of a garage owner) to by-the-throat-pathos (A Thoroughly Nice Boy) to the savage. (Why Tarry the Wheels of His Chariot.)
And the author knew what he was writing about. He was a lawyer in London (Raymond Chandller was one of his clients) and over a long life (Gilbert died at 93 in 2006 and several of his collections were published posthumously) he saw personally the changes in crime, the law, and police forces, that he detailed in his writing. If you like a very well-constructed story, characters that are completely believable, plots that are logical and work that is beautifully written, look no further. You’ll have a fair choice, his books if you count collections number over 40. Many remain in print (others appear in used book’s shops) and if you tire of the over-violent and graphic, go out and buy a Gilbert. He has few equals and none whom I would accept as his superior.
Fencing going on
I was about to start on the computer when I heard an odd regular thudding sound. Wondering what that was I plodded outside and looked about – to see a tractor, two guys, and a stack of fence-posts. Yes, the fences on my neighbour’s small place, and on mine, are being upgraded, or added to. Two more gates so we can shift the stock about more easily, and the fences improved or expanded so that said stock is less likely/able, to crawl through and turn up just where they weren’t wanted. I notice that our two steers, Caramel and Black Coffee are engrossed in events, leaning over their fence to watch. Reminds me of someone who once said “I love work, I could watch it for hours.”
Another sale
Yes, the ghost tale I mentioned an update or two ago as being written, was completed and sold. Arafel will be out very late next year in Whortleberry Press’s Christmas anthology and, as it’s a ‘cat story’ it will also be eligible for the Cat Writer Assoc.’s Muse Medallion in 2013. Now if I can only sell another cat story before mid-year, that’ll be eligible in 2012.
If you write stories/books about cats, you should consider joining the Association. They have a regular newsletter, a website, yearly awards, and a mentor system. For the quite small yearly sub. you get a good lineup for your money. Find them at www.catwriters.org
HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED J. T. McINTOSH
J. T. McIntosh (born Feb. 14, 1925 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland) was a pseudonym used by Scottish writer and journalist James Murdoch MacGregor. MacGregor used the pseudonym for all his science fiction work, which was the majority of his output, though he did publish some books under his own name.
I think that his book, One in Three Hundred, is his best work. It appeared in 1954, and was reissued by the UK SF Book club two years later in hardcover. It’s in three novellas, and may originally have appeared in one of the pulpzines although I can find no record of that, it may alternatively have been written that way in hopes of pulp publications and when his first two books sold he then sold One in Three Hundred as a book without further attempts to sell it in sections. In section one of the book One in Three Hundred Bill Easson has the unenviable task of choosing ten people to live from a town of three thousand. The sun is about to flare and scientists have warned that everything on earth will die, however Mars will not only survive, it would improve and it will be possible to live there. By a combination of desperate effort, and a fair amount of fudging the truth and stretching possibilities, Governments announce that they can save one in three hundred of the population. So Bill is sent to Simsville to choose those whom he will take in his tiny lifeslip (spaceship.) This section is riveting, how would people behave under these circumstances? How would someone, a fairly ordinary man, manage to choose who is to survive and by what criteria? What will sway his choices and how will those in the town, knowing his choice is their life or death, behave towards others, or towards him?
The second section is the journey to Mars, looking at the compromises the passengers must make, (the discussion on morality is amusing now, but in the 1950s it would have been valid then) gradually Bill realizes there is a major problem that could mean everyone in the lifeslip will die despite their apparent escape. How that is dealt with both physically and emotionally, as the passengers understand the dilemma, is psychologically believable and still relevant.
Section three is wryly clever. Over and over it shows how basic human nature hasn’t and isn’t changed even by a catastrophe that’s wiped out all but twenty thousand people. They become tired of cramped conditions, poor food, nothing more then water to drink, inadequate clothing, unrelenting hard and dirty work, and uncongenial companions and they do silly, desperate, dangerous, or illegal things. There is huge pressure on the surviving women to pair off even temporarily and breed. So much so that rape, so long as the woman isn? beaten or otherwise injured as well, appears to be winked at. And savagely beating a man who doesn? want to labour fourteen hours a day under appalling conditions is not only condoned but ordered. The final section shows that people are people; on earth, Mars, or anywhere else and there will always be those who are wolves, sheep, jackals, or sheepdogs, and each will act according to his nature even if temporarily, s/he’s appeared in different garb for the duration of the worst of the emergency. Even close to sixty years after this book was written it stacks up quite well. That’s because the author looked at people and not just at technology, and the nature of people changes a lot more slowly, something for later SF writers to consider.
Film credit
Along with John Mather, J. T. McIntosh is credited for the screenplay for the color feature film Satellite in the Sky (1956). He has not published anything since 1980.
Partial bibliography
NOVELS
World out of Mind (1953)
Born Leader (1954)
One in Three Hundred (1954)
The Fittest (1955)
Incident Over the Pacific (1960)
Two Hundred Years to Christmas (1961)
The Million Cities (1963)
The Noman Way (1964)
Out of Chaos (1965)
Take a Pair of Private Eyes (1968) This has been listed in a number of places as a book and it may have been published in 1968 as a TV series tie-in. However it was originally a 6 episode UK TV series. Derek Fowlds (Heartbeat, Yes Minister, et al) starred as the husband of a husband and wife team of private detectives. The series appeared on BBC2 from April 10th to May 15th 1966. For those who like Modesty Blaise, note that the series was created by Peter O’onnell.
Time for a Change (1967) aka Snow White and the Giants
Six Gates from Limbo (1968 novel)
Transmigration (1970 novel)
A Coat of Blackmail 1970)
Flight from Rebirth (1971 novel)
The Space Sorcerers (1972)
The Cosmic Spies (1972)
Galactic Takeover Bid (1973)
Ruler of the World (1976)
Norman Conquest 2066 (1977)
This is The Way The World Begins (1977)
A Planet Called Utopia (1979)
Short Stories
The Curfew Tolls 1950 (Astounding)
Machine Made (1951)
“Selection,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1955
“You Were Right, Joe” short story, Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1957
“Unit.” New Worlds, 1957
“Tenth Time Around,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1959
“The Wrong World,” Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1960
“Planet of Fakers,” Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1966
a number of McIntosh’s works are available here and there in free downloads.
Blown Away
well, not quite, but it certainly feels as if I should have been. All yesterday was screaming gales, found a lull and even then had trouble accessing my email and replying. Quit in the end and waited until today. Worse yet, the forecast is that we may have really bad gales back again Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I loathe that. I can handle the rain, snow, cold, and even the full heat in summer. But I hate the howling gales.
So do the livestock. Thunder comes in from his cat park with ruffled fur and an indignant look, the hens are all huddled in the hay shed, the sheep in the woodshed, the calves in the lee of the house, and I had earplugs in most of the day. NOT looking forward to their resumption and really hoping that the forecast is wrong.
Cuckoos in the Nest
7 December 2011
IF the eggs ever hatch, I may have given one of my geese psychological problems. The geese sat earlier this year, Senior on five eggs, Sister One on one egg, and Sister Two on hot air and hope. Nothing hatched, (particularly the hope.) The eggs must have been infertile because nothing hatched, and finaly all three girls gave up. I cleaned out the nests, and only a couple of weeks ago realized that all three were sitting again. Senior on 8 eggs, Sister One on four, and Sister Two on – yes, hot air and hope again.
I was sorry that she was in for a second disappointment and thought no more of it until one of the hens went broody and I found her parked right where I didn’t want her, in the most popular hen nest-box, on three eggs. Kindly but firmly I dispossed her, and stood there with three warm eggs in one hand. Hmmm, while I didn’t want that nest-box blocked to all the other hens, I had nothing aginst the eggs, and there was Sister Two and her hope…
So I tossed food out, Sister Two dived for it, and while she was off her nest I tucked in three warm hen eggs. She returned and settled onto them with every evidence of deep satisfaction. The question is, will she still be so satisfied if they hatch? Three offspring, not grey and white like her, but either black or a fawnish shade. Three offspring who don’t swim, and who are a fraction the size they should be, with chick voices. I fear that if those eggs do hatch, I could have set Sister Two up for appointments with a goose psychiatrist. Although it’s going to be interesting to watch events if the eggs do hatch in another 2-3 weeks.