A speculative mind

  Science fiction has given us plenty of stories about robots or computers that become self-aware and go on a rampage at the expense of humanity. As we seem to be making more advances in the realm of artificial intelligence, this seems like a valid thing to worry about. But science fiction has also given us the Three Laws of Robotics. Isaac Asimov came up with the Three Laws of Robotics in an early science fiction story he wrote. He liked it so well that he used it as a fundamental background in all his future stories about robots. The three laws caught on, and now it is not just science fiction people who talk about it. It seems to be taken seriously in popular culture, not only for robot but for artificial intelligence in general. Asimov’s three laws of robotics: 1.        A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2.        A robot must obey orders given it by h...

  At first glance Fairy Tale reminds me a bit of 11-22-63 by King. There is an otherwise normal protagonist who is led to a portal that takes him to another where or when. Our protagonist is Charlie, who is just a normal kid dealing with the loss of his mother. His father has turned alcoholic after the death of his wife. Charlie sees his world crumbling around him. He makes a prayer saying if God will help his dad, he will do whatever God asks. Whether it is a coincidence or not, Charlie’s father gets help the next day. So, Charlie feels he has to fulfil his end of the bargain. Enter the mean old man who lives in the spooky house with a legendarily vicious dog (“like Cujo” Charlie’s friend tells him). Charlie rides by the old man’s house one day to discover that he has fallen and broken his leg. Charlie helps him and the man asks Charlie to take care of his dog (who is not really vicious and is quite old and arthritic at this point. Charlie sees this as his obligation (under th...

  The first famous death I remember was President Kennedy. The president’s death was shocking and it is etched in my brain forever, but before he died, I hardly knew President Kennedy. I knew the name, and knew he was the leader of our country, but when you are four years-old, you hardly pay attention to such people. You certainly don’t know anything about policy or politics. I may have heard him speak on the news a few times. So, it was shocking, but I didn’t really know him. The first death that really touched me was the death of Walt Disney. Walt Disney I knew. I saw him every Sunday night on TV as he introduced the Wonderful World of Color , which after his death would be changed to The Wonderful World of Disney . I had been to Disneyland, the most fun place on Earth and it had his name on it! As young as I was, I had seen many of his movies. For such a person to die, to be no more, was a blow to my eight-year-old self. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it must be wrong. Surel...

I have basically finished my novella The Methane Sea . I am exploring my options with it and shopping it around. In the mean time, here is an excerpt of it that will give you a glimpse into the mind of the commander, Dr. Drake at a time when things are not going altogether well. So it has come to this, Drake thought. Mutiny is what they call it on a ship. What was it called on a research mission? She had heard the comment about breaking the door down. They had tried to talk quietly, but there was no hiding from her. Dr. Drake had put on her most formal outfit. The powers that be at Central had chosen her to command this mission. No one was going to take that away from her. Try as you might, I will thwart you. I will thwart all of you. The disgrace of having her mission fail was unacceptable. She would see this through to the end no matter how many lives it cost. Their lives weren’t important anyway. They were mutineers. Scum. Break the door down? They probably could, but she woul...

  The thing that makes John Irving’s writing compelling is truth. The characters may be unusual or even occasionally do things that mystify us, but they are always true to themselves. They are consistent. And the unfolding of the stories reveal larger truths. His stories have some comic moments, but nobody would call them comedies. This is true with the novel The Last Chairlift . For example, the gay and trans characters in the story are unapologetically gay or trans, even though this takes place at a time when tolerance for anyone outside the “norm” in sexuality was even less than it is today. The main character, Adam, is heterosexual. He has an unconventional upbringing, surrounded by unconventional people and ghosts. Even the ghosts exist in their own truth, even though Adam says he doesn’t understand the rules for ghosts. Whether the ghosts actually exist or are a metaphorical construct, I will leave up to you to decide. But Adam and his mother and a few others can see the gh...

  We have a nightly routine at our house. My wife tends to go to bed before I do, and every night I read to her as she is getting ready for bed. For my birthday this year my wife bought me The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, and I started to read it. I had only gotten a couple of pages in when I thought, “this needs to be a night time reading book.” I knew my wife would like it, because I instantly recognized it as a bit of an homage to one of our favorite movie series. The title should have been a dead giveaway: The Spare Man . While not actually trying to do impressions of Myrna Loy and William Powell, while I was reading, I did try to channel their energy. And if you haven’t yet figured out what movie series I am talking about, I suggest you google William Powell and Myrna Loy, then watch the films! Our protagonist is Tesla Crane a rich and famous roboticist who is on her honeymoon with her new spouse Shal who is a retired detective. Their honeymoon trip is on a cruise ship...

  I just finished watching the 2019 television series version of Catch-22 staring Christopher Abbott. Probably 40 years ago, I watched the 1970 movie version with Alan Arkin. Probably like 50 years ago, I read the novel by Joseph Heller. In Catch-22 we follow Yossarian, a bombardier stationed on an island in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II. Yossarian is told that once he flies 25 missions, he can go home. But as he and his fellow crewmates get close to 25, they raise the line to 30 missions, then 35, then 40, and so on. We see Yossarian trying to navigate this psychological hellscape. As it has been some 50 years since I read the novel, I would be hard-pressed to say how faithful each screen version was to the original source. That being said, I think it would be hard for a two-hour movie to do true justice to the rich characters from the book. A series should be able to do a better job. And it does . . . but I still think we did not get to know Yossarian’s friends a...