- Realizing that someone might misunderstand my intent, I added on to the commentary on "Night of the Cooters" by Howard Waldrop. Mostly it deals with how the story conforms to and confounds H. G. Wells' original tale, War of the Worlds.
- Discovery!: Eileen Gunn wrote a sequel to Waldrop's story for Tor.com.
- I used to get emails when someone commented on my post, and frankly it slipped my mind that I needed to approve them. There's usually more spam than comments. When I unleashed about two years of comments, I found two interesting ones:
- One asked about the theme in "The King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer.
- A second asked me to discuss ethics and morality in "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.
"The King of the Beasts" by Philip José Farmer
It's interesting that "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.
I still contend that, instead of building up to the surprise, the idea might have been developed a little more although one could argue that that would be unnecessary due to its brevity.
I will rewrite this post to incorporate the above.
"Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon
This post is #8 on the all-time most popular blog posts. I will need to reread the story with the question of ethics and morality in mind. What a fascinating question. Thank you.
I looked up the definitions and commentary and it appears that most of us use them interchangeably. However. some view morality as a personal thing and ethics as a group thing.
I don't. I see morality as a group and personal thing. They are the rules we live by and sometimes share with others. Ethics would be examining these rules closely, trying to eliminate bias, to understand our rules and others' rules. Morality would be the vine that grows naturally. Ethics would be the trellis that someone constructed (or that someone examined). Others have made different distinctions--if there are any.
I hope to eventually write a post addressing this, assuming that, when I reread it, I will come up with something interesting. Great question.
Future Posts
I hope to write about more mentors and colleagues who became friends as a result of our mutual interest in writing. SF is a small field. Some mentors were kind, some were not. Some I disagreed with ethically, some not. You probably cannot guess which is which by the way I write about them here since I try to maintain integrity in examining the stories. Stories are not people. Besides these comments are as much for me as for others.
Howard Waldrop was a mentor. As Chad Oliver called him, he was a story doctor, knowing how to diagnose a story's ills. His perspective always surprised our Clarion class.
After winning the Writers of the Future contest, I plan to read and discuss stories from those anthologies as well L. Ron Hubbard's own oeuvre. I discussed a few of his works on here: Fear and "Beyond All Weapons." I thought there had been more. In terms of books, Battlefield Earth I found particularly interesting for its discussion of economics though I forget now what that discussion entailed (hence, the blog). Ole Doc Methuselah wasn't as effective. As a young man, I remember getting enthralled by the opening of the Mission Earth sequence; however, my rereading was interrupted. I am most fond of his pulp stories, though. So I plan read those. I seem to recall being particularly fond of "Crossroads."
Howard Waldrop was a mentor. As Chad Oliver called him, he was a story doctor, knowing how to diagnose a story's ills. His perspective always surprised our Clarion class.
After winning the Writers of the Future contest, I plan to read and discuss stories from those anthologies as well L. Ron Hubbard's own oeuvre. I discussed a few of his works on here: Fear and "Beyond All Weapons." I thought there had been more. In terms of books, Battlefield Earth I found particularly interesting for its discussion of economics though I forget now what that discussion entailed (hence, the blog). Ole Doc Methuselah wasn't as effective. As a young man, I remember getting enthralled by the opening of the Mission Earth sequence; however, my rereading was interrupted. I am most fond of his pulp stories, though. So I plan read those. I seem to recall being particularly fond of "Crossroads."
The WotF contest has its own, self-guided workshop with essays by Hubbard and videos with Orson Scott Card, Tim Powers, and Dave Wolverton. Pretty interesting, so far.
Some claim they have the contest figured out. I don't, so I don't know that I can offer general advice. However, I do think the "After the Workshop" podcast on this link is particularly enlightening. If you're submitting a story to the contest, good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment