"A Prize in Every Box" by F. J. Bergmann

First appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

A small family keeps buying a new cereal, mostly because it has coupons that make the next box cheaper. But suddenly the prizes inside get stranger and more wonderful--even potentially deadly or disfiguring.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

This story updates the Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore's oeuvre. The opening is a masterwork of gripping the reader and not letting go. This mastery may have to do with Bergmann's background in poetry--the ability to capture the reader in a small space. Poetry and fiction are different if related skill sets, and it isn't often you see one crossing between the two genres.

It begins intriguingly enough:

We begged for the brand-name cereal as seen on TV, in aluminum-silver cylindrical boxes lined up the supermarket shelves like a phalanx of spaceships, with twice the nutrition of oatmeal. Hints about the prizes appeared in commercials: wind-up robots, tiny books, toy-store gift certificates, even the keys to a mansion... and other, special prizes.

Lots of goodies in here to make me bite. The "as seen on TV" has a nostalgic dimension, and it hints at what engages the speaker. It's hard to tell if this is the future or the past, though. 

A problem that occurs to me on the third read: over-promises. It suggests a larger scope than is covered here. Could this be an opening to a novel version? Once I got to the ending, I definitely wanted a novella.

Two other problems: When has cereal ever had this huge of a promotion budget? Why aren't other kids having similar experiences? They may not be. But we should know this, one way or another. The mansion seems problematic, but does that figure into the larger version of this story? 

We tried to include cereal as a "basic food group."

Love it. Great humor--whether the speaker is or is not aware of it. We get a strange description of the cereal and the coupons that keep the mother buying, and I'm still in the game. But it's not until this mysterious line that I'm finally sold and ready to roll with author where she's headed:

The nutritional information on the side of the boxes was phrased in an unusually convincing manner, however: 120% USRVTOL-recommended levels of aractozone! Results of recent studies published in the Journal of Developmental Confrontation suggest that this compound promotes general rectitude, reticence, and well formed stools.

 Yes! Yes! Yes!

I ran with this family as they discovered different prizes and how they worked. Except the ending tapers off, mostly because it doesn't address certain issues:

1. Who is behind the cereal, and why? 
2. How many people on the planet are affected and what's happening to it as a result? The title and the cereal's promotion budget suggests the whole planet is involved. Surely, this would conversation topic at every child's cafeteria table. However, the students in the classroom and bus seem oblivious.
3. What are the children's goals and how do these cereal prizes impact those?

To answer these questions would require a novella. Perhaps a novel could work if the scope were widened sufficiently. The opening may suggest a wide enough aperture. When the story takes place might suggest more necessary widening.

This might have worked as a short story if the answer to #1 and #2 were closed off. Maybe the cancer situation was the crisis moment with a sort of climax in solving the problem were kept in family--no bullies. The bullies open up question #2--a good tool for enlarging the story into a novella or novel.

I do hope we see more of this family in a larger tale. If it weren't for the ending, this might have been my favorite.

Bergmann's work has appeared in Pulp Literature, Abyss & Apex, and elsewhere. Her poetry has won the Elgin and Rhysling awards.

Catching my Death by J. L. George

First appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

On an alternate Earth, or on perhaps a planet quite similar to ours with people very like us except for one major deviation, the people catch their deaths. They pursue them in the woods, ensnare them in their nets. And what they catch determines their future. 

When Ash spies Jacob's death--not yet imprinted--and compares it to the wild death she accidentally snared, she wonders might happen if they swapped.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

This story seems like it could have fit into the Kristine Kathryn Rusch era of Fantasy & Science Fiction or Dean Wesley Smith's Pulphouse (which was recently rebooted but submissions by invitation, with a similar flavor), playing as it does with that popular saying, "You'll catch your death."

What's wonderful is this diverging contrast between Jacob's life and Ash's, which perhaps should have been reversed (Jacob, in the Bible, pulls a lot of tricks and has tricks pulled on him--so a fitting moniker). The story carries much freight, but there's bit of sidestep that may work better for some than others that occurs near the end. It's probably intended to guide to a certain political sensibility, but it needed more setup to let us aware that this was a viable option in this world. 

 

One wonders if the tale could have continued to develop the contrast, and thereby develop the characters, instead. Pressing the guilt and relief that Ash must feel.

One might also express some doubt that someone might not find love because of their death (of lack thereof). It might deter some but attract others although, of course, there are barriers to love.

 

Still, a solid, thought-provoking work.

J. L. George's bibliography can be found here, including the long-lived Electric Spec and Constellary Tales.

"King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer (reassessed)

Warning: This is all discussion, or all spoiler. You can find a PDF of the original publication here.

So earlier this year, I found a comment on the brief "King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer, asking what the theme was. I think the theme was implicit in comments.

I still stand behind my initial assessment although I didn't give it its full due. After the first reread, I added this comment:

"The King of the Beasts" is #17 on this blog's most popular posts. That suggests that the story has more impact on readers than one might have supposed. Time permitting, I will need to revise it. It has more relevance than the tone may have implied.

The theme deals with how, as a consequence of allowing so many species to become endangered. humanity itself might become one of its own victims. Potent, surely.

But I reread it several more times, pondering. At first I felt it should have been longer, perhaps characterizing better, but then the punchline loses its punch.

Then I finally decided to examine it, line by line, to see what worked, what didn't. These lines were especially effective:

Passenger pigeons strutted. A rhinoceros trotted like a dainty battleship.

The strutting or arrogance of a species that had been wiped out--much like humanity within this tale. The next line was even more potent: there's nothing dainty about a rhinoceros or a battleship and it serves as an effective contrast.

One thing I originally listed as a problem--hiding the identity of the characters as aliens (to us)--may or may not be. The only way we can enjoy the surprise ending--humans are the extinct species resuscitated!--is by hiding physical details that we would have known were we there. A cheat.

On the other hand, what if the story assumes we are one of the aliens and can observe humanity from the outside? On the other other hand, wouldn't we be unlikely to make the visitor's shocked comment?

The one thing that I dislike about the story isn't the common misanthropic punchline, but that shocked comment:

 “Then it must be...But you wouldn’t dare!”

Some may feel it's necessary, but we're being fed what our reaction should be. After all, in the far future, would humanity be more likely be forgotten, seen as a foolish mistake, or seen as a terror unleashed upon the universe? While the above suggests part of one problem, the dialogue also limits some of the tale's thematic potential. 

What is the source of the misanthropy? Nuclear war? Certainly that would have been at the backs of many minds when this was published (note the aforementioned battleship). Our destruction of species? That may be here with the passenger pigeon although many here were not extinct and endangered species at the time of writing. Perhaps it is a combination of sins.

"King of the Beasts" is a great title, which suggests that humanity is nothing more than a beast like the rest of the animal kingdom and this little vignette might have focused more tightly on that.

If we consider ourselves as just one of the animal kingdom, it's interesting that such a theme arises when it arises. The literary past has plenty of precedent for respecting animals (the Bible, native American legends), but if we see ourselves as animals before we considered ourselves as insulated and safe from wild animals, one suspects that this now common misanthropic conclusion in the modern world, would have seemed incongruous in an earlier time. Of course, we would have seen our kind as dangerous, but imagine complete annihilation? Probably not. 

While many would have been saddened at the passing of a species, would it have been seen as the accidental victim of "progress"--an idea we cling to this day? This is not an agreement with such an interpretation, but merely a SF'nal thought, exiting our own perspectives to see our perspective again. It's a claret, a palate cleanser. Perhaps one day, our children will see our modernity through yet another lens.

"Closer to You" by Scott Bradfield

 

   We interrupt our regularly scheduled review to bring you Scott Bradfield reading himself:

First appeared in Tampa Review. Reprinted in his Greetings from Earth collection--a pdf of which you can get from the author for free.

The story's from the point of view of a girl whose understanding of the world lurks just outside of understanding. 

Playful with words and perspective. Recommended.

Borrowed Glory by L. Ron Hubbard

First appeared in John W. Campbell's Unknown, reprinted in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

A genie, Tuffaron, and an angel, Georgie, debate about the stupidity and willfulness of human beings in terms of their tendency toward suffering. They bet that "[a] human being... is so starved for comfort and happiness that if he is granted all for [48 hours] he will be content."

So they grant an older woman, Meredith Smith, the chance to find love as a young woman for two days.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

The wager seems foolhardy. If you figure a lifespan of, say, seventy years, and you only give them two days of happiness, why would you expect them to be content with 0.0078% of their life being happy (and the story does suggest that Meredith hadn't yet been happy in all of her years)? It's a very strange, lopsided bet with odds stacked heavily against the optimist.

The woman does find love with a young man, and they are so taken with each other that they marry within that brief span, but then she runs away before her two days are up.

Despite the absurd bet, it sets up a moving little tale. In my first reading, I was so impressed with its emotive qualities, that I might have made it my favorite. My second reading wasn't as powerful, knowing what would happen. I suspected what would happen in the first reading, but somehow knowing for certain takes away some of the pleasure.

It remains unclear who wins the bet as it turns out there are two halves, two responses that shade what's happening although I suppose having the potential to be content had things played out differs from being content when tragedy strikes.

One wonders if the opening bit were necessary. Something needed to be done to set events in motion, though. Also, the bet between two supernatural beings does get one to ponder beyond one's own mortality.

A good read. I recommend giving it a gander at least once.

A Word That Means Everything by Andy Dibble

Appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

On the planet Murk, Pius is trying to translate scripture into a language for the Thulhu, aliens with tentacles and vestigial wings--aliens that look a lot like Lovecraft's creatures of Cthulhu. His first challenge is even to get them to respond to him. Translating the Judeo-Christian scripture into something these creatures can understand is proving nigh impossible.

Suddenly, Pius's slow and modest success is interrupted by a famous translator, David Nestor, sent to replace Pius.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

This tale of religion and language treads similar ground as Ted Chiang, James Blish and Mary Doria Russell--some august company to keep.

It's hard to tell what what Dibble's theological perspective might be, but he is clearly knowledgeable of his subject matter. People think they can deviate anywhere with a theology and proceed to make rookie mistakes, but deviations within a theology occurs within certain boundaries and Dibble seems keenly aware of those boundaries, aware of where he can play. It's stunning. Even on a second read, I'm just as hooked as the first. 

The language issues seem very genuine as if Dibble is equally skilled at languages, too, although I suspect it would be hard to begin the process of any language if your alien won't communicate (an issue I didn't think about until I was combing over it on a third read to pick at the story with a lens and tweezers).

Least probable are the aliens. I suppose one could say, given the vastness of the universe, anything is likely to occur. But a creature whose primary locomotion is water based (water propulsion and tentacles) is probably not going to have vestigial wings. Of course, there are flying fish, but these occurred with fish who leap out of the water, which an octopus is unlikely to do.

Of course, the whole point of the story is to ask what it would be like to communicate the concept God to a Lovecraftian creature. So in a sense, this alien biology critique is nitpicking.

Dibble's style is very Asimovian and it works well at this length. The density of philosophical or linguistic discussion--while almost pure joy--is a workout, and might tire out a reader at novel length unless it were specifically designed as a novel of short stories or novelettes, so that the reader can exercise, then rest on the side of the pool before leaping forward.

With impeccable timing Dibble throws the monkey wrench of David Nestor into the story which enriches and gives Pius a new challenge.

While all of these writers are a pleasure to discover, Dibble provides an old-school (or a Ted Chiang sensibility, if you prefer), uncommon level of speculation  As Dibble's craft improves, this writer might be the discovery of the decade.

The author has appeared multiple times in Sci Phi Journal. 

Foundations by Michael Gardner

Appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

The protagonist sneaks out of the house when she is supposed to be watching her eight-year-old sister Lacy. The house has swallowed her eight-year-old sister Lacy, laced into the woodwork after her uncle Carlton escapes the grip of the house because he doesn't like how her father's running the family factory.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

This felt like a Nina Kiriki Hoffman story. The invention is both simple and extravagantly wild and fun. The kind of speculation that makes you jealous you didn't think of it yourself. The story tunes into a family that feels fully realized.

My only complaint is that the point-of-view character doesn't feel like the right one, or maybe it is the right one, but it should have turned out differently through further character or speculative development -- or even accepting the responsibility that another chose. As is, the primary decision is taken from the main character's hands.  Perhaps it would work better as part of a novel.

The author has been nominated twice for the Aurealis award. Here's one from the ezine Metamorphosis.

The Trade by C. Winspear

 Appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

Lena Sokolov dreams more of glory in space than of the typical life on Earth. On the ISS, she and her colleagues encounter an alien who could enter the planet within the cosmos or aliens, or spell doom for its current inhabitants.

Comment with some minor spoilery bits:

What's working is the solid interaction once the alien enters the ISS, wearing the identical uniform they are all wearing. What ensues is a debate that feels fresh and twisty and philosophically relevant.

The opening and character isn't as strong until the appearance of the alien, but that makes a solid 85% story. 

BOOM: A Lovecraftian Urban Fantasy Thriller Kindle Edition by Ben Farthing

Reminder: Ben Farthing's ebook, The Piper's Graveyard: A Small-Town Cult Horror Thriller Suspense, is on sale at 99 cents. I haven't yet read it.

Ben Farthing demonstrated his worth as a writer by having a story come in second in the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. 

Last year, I encountered Farthing's first book, Boom--extremely strange, in the best sense of the term. If you like weird, chances are you'll like it. Read the excerpt first. If you're enchanted, then buy the ebook. Its speculative invention starts strong and barrels toward the finish. 

The story follows Everard Harrison, a resident of the D.C. metro area, pulls his truck to a stop to help a woman who appears to be in distress. He is presently unaware of his latent supernatural abilities until they fall upon him when threatened by others who have long been using theirs:

She breathed in deep gasps. Not crying--hyperventilating. 

"Hey, are you all right?" A stupid question.

He spotted a scrap of paper next to her that she must have dropped. He picked it up and touched her shoulder. She looked up. Her expression wasn't panic, but exhaustion, like she'd just run a marathon. Sweat beaded on her skin and glistened in her hair. She was slender, slightly older than Everard--probably mid-thirties--and gorgeous despite the blemishes across her cheek....

It wasn't acne, or age spots, or scars. It was a swarm of holes, moving both together and independently like a school of fish. Each deep enough to show teeth or bone, but instead only revealing pink flesh descending into shadow....

The holes glided over her face, over--oh, God--over her eyes, her open eyes, tiny fleshy pits slipping along whites and blues and irises. He should run. That what he should do, and he would, as soon as he could figure out what was going on with her skin.

It's interesting the author slapped a lot of labels on to clue readers into what they'd be in for: Lovecratian, thriller, urban fantasy, horror. He removed the label, but it did have a super-hero label as well. They are all useful guide posts to what's inside, but still inadequate. If you like non-stop break-neck thrillers that make it hard for you to catch your breath, this could be a good fit. 

I'd offer Roger Zelazny as a stronger comparison, more so than Lovecraft (though the design of the creatures that populate this realm share something of the Lovecraftian spirit). We have a protagonist who has forgotten, had his memory wiped, or somehow never knew of his connection to the strange inner world that operates beneath our own.

Because of its pacing, I almost failed to notice the deeper political significance of the work, situated as it is in the Washington D.C. vicinity. So it also offers some intellectual entertainment for those who like that sort of thing, but obviously without overbearing or overwhelming the work--subtly done.

99 Cent ebook, The Piper's Graveyard: A Small-Town Cult Horror Thriller Suspense by Ben Farthing

• Ben Farthing's ebook, The Piper's Graveyard: A Small-Town Cult Horror Thriller Suspense, is on sale at 99 cents. It seems an intriguing premise, taking off from The Pied Piper.

• I read Farthing's first book, Boom, last year, which I'll report on shortly--a strangely tinctured fast-paced genre work that seems impossible to define yet fits within the field. If you like weird, you'll probably like it. Definitely, read the excerpt first to see if you'd like it. You have to be into its strangeness, which doesn't take long to appear. Its speculative invention doesn't end there.

• Anyway, I thought I'd post the ebook sale first so potential readers have more time to take advantage of the sale.

When I checked in to see how the ebook on sale was doing, here are the numbers:

• #3 in Occult Horror

  #4 in Occult Fiction

  #5 in Horror Suspense

• 
  

Re-evalutating Back to the Future (Part I - III)--the power of ending well

 After the commercial success of Romancing the Stone, Robert Zemeckis was able to create Back to the Future, reaping in what comes to, according the Inflation calculator, nearly a billion in sales in today's dollars. He was initially unable to find a studio, shopping it around to forty, none of which were interested in his humor. 

My initial viewing of the first film was bedazzlement. I don't recall laughing, but its zany, light-hearted tone was a definite draw. The "humor" won't make someone laugh out loud over goofy clocks or a Rube-Goldberg device. Certainly, it'd been done before. However, it is amazing to watch such an elaborate construction burn toast and open a can--or similar mundane tasks. The draw isn't realism, either. What inventor ever constructed an elaborate device to execute a mundane task? Doing so requires far more work than doing the simple task itself. Yet its elaborateness is simple enough that we buy into it. 

The pouring of dogfood with a worryingly absent dog, missing plutonium that ends up under the bed (revealed by a skateboard), and hitching rides on a skateboard while late for school are nice touches, but not particularly hilarious. They do set up the mood of the film. They suggest inventiveness, resourcefulness, and a touch of danger.

If we drilled down very far, we'd expose the lack of realism, but it's just enough realism we buy into it and we're shown not to take any of it too seriously. Later, the main body of the film becomes a vehicle for nostalgia for one generation to explore its parent's generation. It's an intriguing recipe for success.

But what happened to the next films? We go from an 8.5 on IMDB to 7.8 to a 7.4, from $1 billion to $0.8 to $0.5 (Rotten Tomatoes, my least favorite indicator, goes from 96 to 66 to 80). The second film in ways is far more inventive--not only in painting the future but also in playing with time. It is perhaps somewhat less believable, but the established tone prevents this from being a problem. When I was a kid, my problem was outrage that it wasn't a complete film, that I'd paid money for an incomplete experience.  

The final film completed the experience and returned a little more believability, but the inventiveness dropped way down. My first viewing as a kid was that it was an excuse to make a mediocre western. My feeling as a kid might have ranked them as IMDB and the money seem to indicate.

Viewing the films as separate entities, my initial critique of the films stands up. However, as a series, the critiques miss the mark. As I discussed earlier regarding the Alien movie franchise, a series hitches movies together as a team, so that it averages out deficiencies--so long as one of the films isn't DOA. 

Viewing them as a series, my estimation of the films changes. Given the above, you'd conclude that if you only watched one, it should be the first. However, my rewatch inverted my favorites. My new favorite is the last. Mostly, it is because Doc Brown has become, in some sense, the protagonist, and Marty is not just trying to get home but also aiding his friend to find home and/or love without time paradoxes. This increases our affection for both characters and deepens their characterization, albeit not profoundly. Also, gratefully, there's no moment at the end where it suggests we should watch the next movie. Instead, it is a fulfillment of all protagonists and all films with a final vision of wonder.

Sadly, the second, despite its frenetic and pleasurable inventiveness, lags far behind the other two. It seems the filmmakers didn't take time to leave its viewers at a moment where they can assess the events they'd traveled through. It could just be cut from the series without loss. You could say that the first is about going from lucking into life to making strong choices, the second about avoiding making bad choices based on how people goad you, the third about making choices that enhance one's life. But really, there's no platform to do that in the second, which is a shame since moment by moment, it's the most exciting of the three. Unfortunately, Zemeckis can't climb into a time-traveling DeLorean and reshape the ending of the second movie.

Strange how just the ending can affect one's estimation of the whole. There's a quote attributed to Raymond Chandler (?) that I cannot find at the moment, which states that good book is one that you'd read even if the last page were missing. There's something to that, but a lot of mysteries do gain power in that final confrontation, superhero tales that final, grand battle, literary stories that final moving scene. We can't neglect to power of a good ending.

Alien III by William Gibson

What happens when you cross a popular SF movie franchise with a popular SF writer? That's the question here when William Gibson was handed the writing reins of the second sequel--a version ultimately abandoned by the moviemakers. Apparently, Gibson gave this two runs, styling each draft after the first and second movies. Neither accepted.. 

It was floating around the Internet for decades and you can still find it. The popularity of both writer and franchise has created the unusual phenomenon of having a script that was rejected having been made into a comic, an audio drama, and even a novelization by Pat Cadigan.

Another reason this version appeals to fans is that it offers an alternative to the actual Alien3. The first three movies are ranked by IMDB fans as 8.4, 8.3 and 6.5, respectively--a substantial drop. 

This post is more of a place-holder I hope to revisit the series and compare the two versions. My feeling upon listening to the Audible drama is that it is firmly a part of the series. Most series, for me, melt into one another. Individually, some movies may surpass others, but they have an overall leavening. 

For instance, some feel that Aliens was superior to Alien, but any achievement that the second movie had rested, in part, on the inventiveness of its predecessor. It seems a strong addition to the series, but again the invention was in prior films. The movies are hitched. Perhaps as separate entities, the movies might have been greater success or failures, but together they become somewhat uniform like a thematic or sonic concept album like Pink Floyd's The Wall or The Cure's Disintegration. Though some songs may be better than others, the album succeeds or fails based more on its entirety. Likewise, a series like Star Wars has weathered failures due to the initial successful movies pulling the franchise and fans into new iterations.

This offering did not seem exceptionally more inventive than other offerings, but I'd need to rewatch the first and second, and then compare. Perhaps it would have been the boost the series needed. After all, IMDB lists the audio as ranking with the second film.

If you're a fan of the series, you owe it to yourself to check it out.