Posts filed under ‘WALT’S OPINIONS’
DISASTER IN REAL-TIME
In my novel, The Beast Awaits, I try to convey the atmosphere of impending doom which exits for populations thousands of mile away from the initial incident. As with everything I write it needs editing. I find that even to be true with work I have published. The process never stops. I recently had an experience which brought to mind the atmosphere I tried to create. I must go back and see if I can now find better words.
The incident I am referring to is the recent rash of tornadoes our country has experienced. I’ve always been a weather junkie and during the tornado outbreak I tuned to the Weather Channel. The meteorologists were following the storms in real-time, analyzing the radar and issuing warnings. A strange feeling crept over me as they recorded evidence of debris circulating in the air picked up by the tornado. These debris clouds were people’s lives being changed forever, perhaps the people themselves being destroyed, all as it actually happened.
Occasionally they would have people on the ground right after the storm passed and, together with the residents, survey the damage left behind. I sat in the comfort of my family room watching up to the minute changes in people’s lives.
In The Beast Awaits, I deal with events such as this and the emotions they create, the ‘I’m glad it’s not me’ feeling and try to convey the atmosphere that ‘your turn is coming soon’.
Car accidents also come to mind, how everyone slows down to survey the damage, mostly I’m sure glad with the ‘glad it’s not me’ feeling. In The Beast Awaits that emotion is short-lived, for just down the road will be your turn.
OUT OF THE LOOP
I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but the loop seems to have survived.
The reason for my exit was my router. I began having trouble with the internet and thought the reason was one of the millions of hackers who are more cleaver than security for anything these days. Come to find out my router was too old to pick up the new and improved single from my internet company.
Side note. I don’t want to name the company but will give a complex hint. The name of the company rhymes with the mathematical term used to express ‘never ending’.
I called the company and told they would send me a new and improved router.
The day it was due to arrived passed so I called again. After being on hold for 15 minutes I was told the they could not track the package and the router was out of stock. This did not help my paranoia there was some kind of plot for I could not think of how they could hope to track a package that contained an item that was out of stock.
Enough of my personal problems. This episode taught me something vital.
By the way, I am still without a router and now in the public library using WiFi so all the world is looking over my shoulder hacking the hell out of this conversation. Wait a minute, that’s good. Welcome to my blog, hackers.
Back to what I learned from this episode. For a writer, for anyone today the internet is a useful tool, and essential tool we take for granted.
Back in my much younger days I was on the road to becoming a famous poet. That road reached a dead end but I still plug along. To submit your work it all had to be done through the mail. I spent hours in front of my typewriter pouring out my words in erasable typewriter paper, and sending my efforts out along with a SASE. How times have changed.
So until my router shows up, I’ve rejoined the loop for better or for worse.
AND SO IT GOES KURT VONNEGUT: A LIFE by CHARLES SHIELDS
If you’ve read Slaughterhouse – Five: A Children’s Crusade and enjoyed the hell out of it as I did, you owe it to yourself to read this biography and get to know the man behind the work. Reading about Vonnegut’s life and his journey on the rocky road to fame gives you a background into the birth of his novels and will encourage you to read more. I plan to seek out Breakfast of Champions and Cat’s Cradle to my to-read list. One event described in the book that deeply affected Vonnegut’s family life was the death of his brother-in-law in 1958 and I have a vivid memory of that tragic accident for I visited the site shortly after it happened. A train bound for New York was about to cross the Newark-Bayonne Bridge over the Newark Bay. The bridge was open for a passing barge, and as the train approached to open bridge the engineer suffered a heart attack. The fireman tried to stop the train but couldn’t. Two engines and three passenger cars plunged into the bay with the loss of 47 lives. I still recall pictures published in Life magazine taken while the cars were being raised from the water with bodies hanging from the windows. Published photos were more graphic back then. Perhaps it was the next day when, after school, I walked to the local library annex, one of my favorite places. I was eleven. The library was a short distance from school and it feels like kids had more freedom then, even in a rough town like Newark you were able to wander on your own. After settling in, my sister found me and said my family was outside in our car and that I should come along. They were heading for the train wreck. As were approached the bridge there were cars parked all along the road. Coming upon the scene I remember one car still dangling from the track and partially in the water. Everything else was still submerged. Sorry for the digression. Vonnegut’s brother-in-law’s wife, the writer’s sister, died the same day and Vonnegut wound up supporting their four sons. I took a little detour with the above memory, but once again, this is a biography worth reading.
LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER
Even though I now own a tablet and laptop I still lack, in my total acceptance of technology, a device most of society deems ‘life essential’. I have yet to adopt the cell phone.
I constantly hear references to Bluetooth. This sounds to me like the name of a character the late great Soupy Sales would have created. My younger readers will need to reference their grandparents about the meaning of this, I am sure. Bluetooth is the stimulus for this article.
In the March 31st edition of Time magazine I ran across an article ‘Nowhere To Hide’ concerning Bluetooth technology and the cell phone.
One aspect developed concerns museums and involves providing information sent to you while you gaze at a piece of art. This I think would be helpful. The article goes on to discuss how, while in a department or grocery store, and trying to decide what to buy you’re sent coupons via your phone for the product you are contemplating.
The question I pose is this: Where does the benefit stop and manipulation begin?
Some might ask, “What the hell does this have to do with writing?”
Writers track the changes in society through their work, changes that are so ingrained in our daily life that we no longer give them a second thought. We also attempt to predict future trends good or bad, consider George Orwell.
All of the above comes from my observations along with a healthy dose of resisting change. That’s my cross to bear. I was recently thinking of the late nineteenth century, what I would have been like if I had lived during the birth of the telephone and electric lighting. Would I be the last one, alone, reading by candle light?
VISIONS OF GERARD BY JACK KEROUAC
If you’ve never read anything by Kerouac do yourself a favor – begin with On the Road and work your way through his works.
I’ve read a few of his books, but that was some time ago. I’ve now reentered Kerouac’s world with Visions of Gerard. It’s the first book in his series, The Duluoz Legend, and I guess I’m now along for the ride. The series is fourteen books long with Dr. Sax as the next in line and I’m lucky enough to own a copy I bought years ago.
But first, back to Visions of Gerard. This short novel is on long stream of thought with a story line of the narrator’s brother’s death woven in. I’m not an authority, but I don’t think there is anyone currently using this technique.
To be in the mind of Jack Kerouac would be as if you were the silver ball in a pinball machine. You know you’re on the move but not sure of the destination.
READING VS VIDEO GAMES TIME MARCHES ON
If you own one of those new watches that does EVERYTHING, even tell you the time, you have wrapped around your wrist more computer power than went on the first trips to the moon.
I have witnessed the birth and development of the home computer, a presence today in the modern home almost as common as a fork or knife. One fact that constantly amazes me, perhaps because I reside in the population of the well-seasoned is what I find to be the primary use of these machines. That observation is what prompted the birth of this piece.
When we read, one of my favorite pastimes, whether it is fiction or nonfiction we; our mind, our imagination, created the setting of the story, ‘sees’ the story take place. In my opinion, the more we read the more ‘muscles’ our imagination develops. And the more you read the more satisfying the experience becomes. That is my opinion. I cannot speak for anyone else.
The following is pure conjecture and I hope my young readers will correct me if they find fault with what follows.
We are constantly told that the youth of today do not read as much as the youth of the past. Today there is a host of activities to keep the mind occupied. One of these modern marvels is the video game.
I must admit that I have dabbled with the media with my girls when they were young, but an interest never developed. Recalling my limited exposure, the imagination did not come into play. The story line was presented to you visually. It was more or less as if you were watching a television program which you controlled. Your imagination did not grow any ‘muscles’, only your thumbs. Are we raising a generation which lacks the wonder of what an active imagination can provide?
These are the thoughts of a well-seasoned citizen. My youthful readers, am I wrong?
MY WRITING STYLE
Presently, I’m in a quandary about the subject of this piece, my writing style.
Every writer has his or her own style, the way of expressing in word the thoughts they are trying to convey. How does this characteristic of the author originate? Is it some deep-seated voice that represents your essence, or is it merely a manufacture of all the authors whose works you have read?
My reason for pondering this question is that I am in the process of editing my novel, Sweet Depression, and in this endeavor I am attempting to cure what others have pointed out to me as a major fault – my brevity. I tend to concentrate on the core of the story and leave out details that would give the story more life. But where is the line you must be careful not to cross when that life would morph into a boring existence?
Take a look at your bookshelves. If you’re as voracious a reader as I and share my fault of not being able to part with a book once read, those shelves are overflowing. Science fiction and horror are my writing genres, but lately some of my stories have spilled into the murky boundaries of the thriller. But back to science fiction. I look at the science fiction novels of fifty or more years ago and those of today and see a distinct difference. Older science fiction is more concise, more to the point. Of course, you have the epic series Dune written by Frank Herbert and continued by his son which are massive in length, tomes of a complex series. But I look at H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds which is little more than a novella and see the more typical length of science fiction of a bygone era.
Recently I have talked to writers whose work are massive and needed to be cut for publication. My work doe not require deletion but rather addition. But how much to add without diluting down the story or slowing the action, that’s the quandary.
While thinking this piece through I may have come up with the answer to my problem. It is not the length that is important, rather the content and the skill of the writer. Talent is the bottom line. The writer must take the readers by the hand and lead them down a path without detours causing them to lose their way. And when the readers reach the end of that path, if the writer has been successful, they are left with a treasure.
THE STARS MY DESTINATION by ALFRED BESTER
I’m trying to include in my science fiction reading some of the classic works by some past authors in the genre. Science fiction has been with us long enough that it has a history we can follow and chart the progress of the genre incorporating prediction of the future and science fact, observing when fact becomes fact.
The book I presently wish to discuss is The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester copyrighted in 1956.
In this work we find the main character, Gully Foyle, marooned on a derelict spaceship, its sole survivor. He thinks he is about to be saved when he spies an approaching spacecraft. He signals, but they just pass him by. Able to read the name of the craft, Vorga – T – 1339, his mind is consumed with the desire to revenge this abandonment. This becomes the overwhelming theme of the book.
Through the remainder of the book he survives by the twists and turns of fate and ultimately discovers why the spacecraft passed him by. The ship was about to dump 600 refuges into the blackness of space on the orders of the woman he falls in love with once he returns to earth, not knowing that she was the cause of his abandonment.
An interesting process introduced in this work is ‘jaunting’. This is the ability to think yourself to another location discovered by an individual caught in a precarious situation. He thinks of the safety of another location and suddenly finds himself there much to his surprise. However, this ability is limited by the fact that you must know the coordinates of the location you want to go to. You cannot go to the unknown, but Foyle somehow can.
WHILE GETTING IT FAST AND GETTING IT FIRST PLEASE GET IT RIGHT
I’m sure I’m not the only news junkie that has become aware of a growing trend, especially in the local news broadcasts. The rush to report breaking news well before all the relevant facts are known. The source does not matter nor are the facts checked. This may be a major assumption on my part, but I have seen a story reported and 12 to24 hours later, when the story is reported again, the first set of facts are at odds with the well-developed story. The news is becoming a victim of the growing rapidity of technology.
In the past, and I mean maybe thirty years ago, news events were reported in the most recent edition of newspapers or the latest scheduled broadcast. If there was a break in programming, what was reported was what was verifiable.
Today, with the vast majority of us plugged into the electronic grid of information, hardly anything goes by without someone recording it. Images are captured by the ever-present cell phone. But pictures do not necessarily reveal facts. The need to get it fast has replaced the need to get it right.
THE GREEN BRAIN by FRANK HERBERT
The Green Brain another science fiction novel by one of the giants of the genre.
This novel deals with a subject overly used today, many times in the guise of making a profit. Right or wrong, that is my opinion. The subject Herbert deals with long before it was in vogue is the environment.
My paperback copy was published in 1966, with part of the story appearing in 1965 in Amazing Stories as a novelette, Greenslaves.
The story begins with the world wanting to protect the production of food from destruction by insects. Countries begin to eliminate all insects in farm areas and then populate the land with genetically altered bees. China is at the forefront of this effort and one of its scientists, Chen Lhu, travels to Brazil to assist in insect elimination. What he doesn’t reveal until far into the story is that the process does not work. This revelation only comes to light after he and other scientists are trapped in the jungle by strange insect populations. These insects, along with other bizarre occurrences are put into play by the green brain. This intelligence has the ability to manipulate insects and much more.
Herbert’s novel predates real world efforts to manipulate the environment with nonnative plant and animal species in order to control some condition in the habitat that man finds troublesome. More times than not the cure is worse than the problem.
One interesting sideline not pursued to a great extent but mentioned is the existence of a group of environmentalists called Carsonites.
Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962.
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