This week is another short update. I am planning a longer video on what I want to work on over the next few years but it won’t be out for another week at least.
Yearly Archives: 2022
The Gospel According to Earth – Chapter One
“Principia reports Condition Two. Orbital flight, commence acceleration. Starstream squadron you are cleared to depart, you may commence your descent at your convenience.”
Captain Thomas Bourne, Newtonian Flight Command, flicked his left thumb. The motion command was relayed to his helmet microphone, toggling it on, and he replied, “Principia NavCom, this is Starstream Leader, we are Earthbound.” Another couple of finger flicks fired his OF-28’s forward thrusters, killing some of his momentum and pushing its nose down towards Earth’s surface a couple of degrees. The snubby, bullet shaped silhouettes of the other fighters in his squadron briefly pulled up even with him as they adjusted their speeds to match his. Once they were firmly committed to the first leg of their breaking orbit Bourne spoke again. “Lander 42, your escort is in position.”
“Acknowledged, Starstream Leader.” The Newtonian Space Command’s landing craft were built along far less aggressive lines than the fleet’s fighters. Their pilots affectionately called them ‘tubs’ for their very blocky shape and terrible maneuvering characteristics. Fighter pilots assigned to escort them preferred the term ‘albatross.’ “Let us know if you’re expecting any trouble.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been reading the reports from Earth, 42, but trouble isn’t really something they believe in down there anymore.” That voice belonged to Lieutenant Billy Zane, callsign Krampus, in the fighter furthest to port. “Sounds like the whole planet has given up on applied violence as a problem solving approach.”
“Sounds good to us,” the lander’s pilot replied.
“Sounds boring to me,” Krampus replied.
“Too much talk,” Bourne said. “Clear this channel. Lander 42, maintain your position in formation.”
About twenty seconds of flying passed in relative silence before Earth’s upper atmosphere started to tug on the hull of Bourne’s fighter. “Starstream,” he said, “prepare to deploy airfoils. Check mechanisms and report in.”
The diagnostics on an OF-28’s wing system took only a couple of seconds and Bourne had barely finished his own when his squadron started calling in their readiness. Once they all reported readiness he said, “Deploy airfoils.”
All around him the bullet-like profile of the ships shifted. The fighters went from eight meter long, three meter high cylinders to vaguely boomerang shaped. Motorized struts expanded outward and the hull material was disassembled in segments by internal nanolathe vats and then reassembled in their new configuration. The drag on his fighter lessened. “Fire up your jet engines,” Bourne said. “Save that reaction mass.”
Acknowledgments rolled in again. His fighter slowed down again, the thin atmosphere available to its jets too sparse to equal the thrust from its rockets. Bourne toggled his AI’s nav program and double checked his course. Their target landing zone was in a place called Anaheim, one of the cities the Earth government had abandoned and the Colonial Fleet had decided to strip for raw materials. It was an eerie place, full of empty buildings and silent, concrete canyons. As a Newtonian native, Bourne had seen plenty of empty cities in the past, both those under construction on the frontiers of the planet and those bombed out by war. There was something uniquely unnerving about flying over an entirely intact city empty of all life.
Some days he expected the entire place to magically spring to life again, as if the ghosts of the Homeworld were waiting for just the right moment to prank him.
The AI told him that, whether he liked it or not, he was on target to arrive there in forty minutes. “Alright, people, spread out into escort formation and keep your eyes sharp. 42, you’re free to maneuver as needed to compensate for atmospheric drag.”
“Acknowledged, Leader.”
“What are we looking out for, Leader?” The question came from Bubbles, who’s position at the top of the formation left him with the least flying to do at the moment. “UNIGOV seems to be doing its best to just ignore us. If intel from planetside is correct they don’t even maintain a modern military down there.”
“Then watch the weather,” Bourne replied. “We don’t have a satellite network to tap so we’re going to need to monitor that ourselves. You could do your job and ring up the landing group.”
“Sure thing, Leader,” Bubbles said with a laid-back laugh. “But you know what the scuttlebut about the situation on the ground is, don’t you?”
“We don’t spend half our off hours trying to get in the pants of the Comms division,” Krampus shot back. “We’re not going to pick up all the fucking rumors you do.”
“There are no secret vaults full of state of the art space ships down there, people,” Bourne said, letting an edge into his voice. “I saw the specs on the ship the survivors brought back, same as you. It was over a century old. That’s not the kind of space hardware you keep if you’ve built something better last Tuesday. Just stay sharp, the Homeworld has a population equivalent to the whole of the Triad Worlds, someone down there could’ve dreamed up a nasty surprise for us.”
“Leader, Peepers.” The low, growling voice could easily come off as irritated but that was typical for Peepers. “I’m picking up an EM field just north of the Anaheim approach corridor. Never seen anything like it on our previous runs.”
Bourne’s AI displayed the relevant sensor readings on his board and sure enough, Peepers was right. “Control, are you getting this?”
There was a couple of seconds delay, just long enough for a quick discussion in the Battle Space Information Center. “Affirmative, Leader. We’re picking it up as well and we don’t have anything like it from any of our previous scans of the area. Fly careful.”
“See?” Bourne couldn’t keep a hint of satisfaction out of his tone. “We didn’t even have to look that hard to find something new.”
“Doesn’t look strong enough to be any known countermeasures,” Krampus said. “But the signal strength is ramping up. Could be a new weapons emplacement.”
“Leader, Bubbles. I’m not getting any response from the Anaheim team on the usual or backup frequencies.”
Bourne frowned. “They made the T-minus 30 check-in, didn’t they?”
“That’s affirmative,” Control answered. “They didn’t report any comm trouble at the time.”
“Bubbles, this is Hangnail.” Her voice came high and clear across the radio. “Any chance the new EM field is some kind of comms blocking?”
“Wrong kind of radiation, Hangnail,” Bubbles answered. “It could scramble the transmitter if it was about a thousand times stronger than now but as things are there’s no way its directly causing a comms blackout.”
“Well the field’s doubled in strength in the last ten seconds,” Bourne said. “Whatever it is, it’s growing fast. 42, if I were you I’d drop back a couple of klicks until we get a better idea of what’s going on down there.”
“Copy that, Leader.”
“You’re on the bottom, Hangnail.” Bubbles left a deliberate pause.
Hangnail didn’t miss it. “Don’t go getting ideas.”
“Can you get a visual on the landing site? Maybe they left us a note.”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
Hangnail went quiet for a moment and Bubbles filled the time by making the bizarre mouth sounds his callsign was derived from. Bourne filled the time by watching the strength of their anomalous EM field quickly ramp higher. Finally Hangnail got back on the comm, apologetic. “No signs of anything out of the ordinary, so far as I can tell.”
“Starstream squadron, this is Control.” The operator up in Principia BASIC was starting to sound a little strained. “We’re monitoring the area but right now there’s no sign of anything out of place beyond that EM field. A little magnetism never hurt anyone, much less full fledged Newtonian fighter craft. The General says to go ahead and continue with the landing.”
Apparently General Ollinger had taken an interest in the situation. That explained the change in attitude up in BASIC – nothing kept a soldier on his toes like having the ranking officer in theater personally looking over your shoulder. “Control, Starstream Leader. Copy that. I recommend going to Condition One.”
“We’ll pass that on, Leader.”
This time the silence on Control’s end lasted a lot longer than the handful of seconds a quick consultation took. Then, almost ninety seconds later, a new voice came over the comm. “Attention, all ships in the Unified Colonial Fleet. This is the Sea of Tranquility. Admiral Carrington has ordered all ships to General Quarters. Stand by for potential hostile action. I repeat, stand by for potential hostile action.”
Bourne winced. He hadn’t expected that response. He certainly hadn’t expected the fleet’s flag officer to be roped into the decision, he’d assumed the Principia would elevate it’s alert status and that would be the end of it. And Tranquility control wasn’t done yet. “Orbital flight to combat velocity, Remus is to move to the quadrant opposite Principia and stand by to support the landing group as needed.”
“Wonderful,” Bourne muttered after twitching off his mic. “Just what I wanted, support from the space pirates.”
Given the layout of the fleet sending the Minervan destroyer to support them did make the most sense so he couldn’t really begrudge the admiral his decision. After all, Copernicus wasn’t the planet that had Galilean pirates camped in their cities for two years. The orbital flight, on the other hand, was upwell of the moon, so far from Earth’s gravity that it barely even registered. Bourne wasn’t sure what good sending them to combat speed was going to do. Even at that pace they wouldn’t be able to make it inside Lunar orbit for twenty minutes, Earth’s atmosphere was almost a day away.
He twitched his mic back on. “Alright, Starstream. Look sharp, guess everyone is looking over our shoulder on this one.”
“Great.” Krampus didn’t sound that enthused at the idea.
The boundary of the anomalous field was fast approaching. “Be ready for anything,” Bourne said. “Reports say Earth is way ahead of us in several fields so this could be the opening move for just about anything.”
Another round of replies. By the time they were done the squadron was already in the depths of the magnetic field, diving towards their landing zone. They’d been their for exactly seventy six seconds when Peepers said, “Leader, my jet engine just failed on me. Diagnostics are trouble shooting but I’m going to have to switch to thrusters.”
“Copy that, Peepers. Don’t want to spook the natives so go ahead level off. We’ll bring you in last after the ground team has a chance to prep for you.”
“Sounds good, Leader. Igniting thrusters n-”
The transmission cut off as Peeper’s fighter blew itself to pieces.
“Holy shit!” Instinct drove Bourne to swing his fighter around the expanding cloud of debris long before conscious acknowledgment of the disaster. A second later they were past it. “Control, what the fuck was that?”
“Don’t know.” The controller’s voice was strained with surprise and panic. “Looking over the telemetry now. The start up process on his main thrusters was going fine so it doesn’t look like a programming error.”
“Lander, this is Leader, abort landing, I repeat abort landing. All fighters make for space.”
“Leader, Control.” The operator was regaining control of himself. “There’s no signs of ground based weapons fire. This has to be some kind of operational failure; it can’t be enemy action.”
“I’m not taking chances, Control,” Bourn snapped. “The ground team can wait an hour or two while we figure out what just killed Peepers.”
“Leader, this is Franco.” The squadron’s newest pilot, Frank Oregon, came over the radio as the squadron turned towards space. “My jet engine just cut out. Diagnostics say it’s the bearings.”
“Control, does that match Peepers’ telemetry?” Bourne asked.
“Pulling it now.” The two seconds it took for them to come back after that were the longest in his life. “That’s affirmative, Leader.”
That may mean he was having the same problem Peepers was. “Franco, do not, I repeat do not attempt to switch over to thrusters. Try to glide over the target landing zone and punch out there.” Bourne consulted his HUD. “We’re coming up on the upper atmosphere, folks. Avoid switching to thrusters until we get out of this mag field.”
“Leader, Krampus. I just checked my airfoils in preparation for the change over to space flight. All, I repeat all my actuators are out, wing movements are a no-go. Visual inspection shows a large hole in my port wing and it’s growing. I’m guessing we’re in a disassembler field.”
Bourne’s stomach did a flipflop. Disassembler fields were the ultimate in point defense weaponry, a magnetic field full of nanotech that ripped apart incoming missiles or fighters on a molecular level when they tried to pass through. At least in theory. No one in the Triad Worlds had ever made a practical one for a host of reasons. “All right, let’s operate with that as our working hypothesis. Franco, you’re not making it to the ground in one piece if you stay in the field. Recommend you maneuver out of it, if you can.”
“I have no propulsion, Leader, and the field is still growing,” Franco replied. “Don’t think I’m outrunning the edge like this. Is it possible to triangulate the source of the field? I might have better luck hitting it from the air at this point.”
Bourne seriously doubted a fighter could descend quickly enough to do that, given how fast the disassembler field was working, certainly not without engines. Given the options available, however, he wasn’t going to judge how Franco chose to spend his last minutes. “Control, look in to that, please?”
“Acknowledged, Leader.” Control didn’t sound any happier about it. “Remus, are you in position to assist?”
“Control, this is Commander Gryner on the Remus.” The Minervan skipper had the rough, gravelly voice of someone who had inhaled a lot of smoke in his career. Or possibly vacuum. “We’ll arrive at our designated orbit point in eighty seconds but we can maneuver to assist-”
“Holy shit!” Krampus spun out of formation, his fighter striking his wingmate as the wing on the opposite side spun away into the distance. Drag forces and the constant work of the disassembler field must have torn it off. Both fighters crumpled and spun off in opposite directions. Nord – Krampus’ wingmate – died instantly as something in the ship exploded and touched off its thruster fuel or missile warheads. Krampus managed to eject, his fighter tumbling off through the formation as he sailed upwards.
“42,” Bourne snapped, “can you get down here and retrieve Krampus?”
“Negative, Leader. He’s still in the field and we’re barely outrunning the boundary as it is. If we come back for him I don’t think we’re ever getting out of it.”
“Shit. Shit.” Krampus was starting to panic over the mic. “That burns.”
Or maybe not panic, Bourne realized with a sinking feeling. Maybe he was starting to get pulled apart. “Krampus, this is Leader. We’re going to figure-”
Krampus started to scream and Bourne suspected he wasn’t getting through.
“Control.” Gryner’s voice rose over the noise. “Please remove Krampus from this channel.”
“What the fuck, Gryner,” Bourne snapped even as Krampus’ voice cut off. He did a quick visual check of the air outside, trying to pick Krampus out of the blue seas below and the black, star spattered skies around. He managed to spot the man’s body after only a few seconds looking and immediately wished he hadn’t found it.
“I need you to hear me, Leader,” Gryner said, blissfully unaware of what Bourne had just seen. “I’ve read up a lot on D-field research. One of their biggest weaknesses is that the field itself is unstable over large distances. Our researchers can’t keep one in place for more than a few minutes over the volume of a singe vessel. Earth is deploying one over thousands of cubic miles.”
“Good for them,” Bourne snapped. “We knew they were a couple of generations ahead of us in nanotech.”
“True. But their field is unstable, we’re reading it from here. That means it will collapse if you can disrupt it with, say, a coordinated plasma barrage.” The smugness is Gryner’s voice could almost be forgiven since it brought a chance at salvation with it. Almost. “There’s too much atmo between us and the field for our point defenses to reach. Are your plasma launchers operable?”
“Check ’em, Starstream,” Bourne snapped.
“Principia,” Gryner continued, “adding your guns to the mix gives them better odds of success. Do you have an angle?”
“Not as of yet,” Control replied. “But the captain knows and is angling for position.”
“Fuck.” Bourne pounded his controls in frustration when they told him his main weapon wouldn’t initialize. The forward part of his hull was starting to look more like Swiss cheese than a spaceship but at least he hadn’t lost propulsion yet.
Others weren’t so lucky. Bubbles announced, “I’ve got the main gun booting up.” Two seconds later he followed that up with, “Nope. Circuits overloaded and the whole thing fried. I think it took my engine, too. I’m ballistic.”
“Stay in your cockpit,” Bourne said. “If we can down this field we’ll have the lander come in and pick you up after.”
“Roger that, Leader.”
“Leader, this is Tranquility BASIC. Please stand by for the arrival of orbital flight.”
It took real effort for Bourne to get past his astonishment and crank his gaping mouth closed again. “Stand by? We don’t have thirty hours to wait on ’em, Tranquility.”
“You won’t need it,” Control said. “You’re not doing anything good for yourselves right now so just hang on.”
Bourne switched off his headset and threw his hands in the air. It was true, the disassembler field was playing havoc with the whole squadron but it wasn’t like they had the option of just ignoring it. He was deciding if he should try firing up his plasma launcher again or keep spitting plasma of his own at Control when the orbital flight showed up.
They snapped out of superluminal with no notice, just the brief pop of extra bright light that always accompanied objects dropping below the luminal barrier. Twelve starfighters of Copernican design that, at a glance, had the basic diamond shape of the TX-49. They were long pointed trapezoids with a squat base and a forward taper that made up sixty percent of the total length. However Bourne quickly picked out differences. A much broader middle that made the craft as much as six meters wide, rather than the 49’s standard four meters. A heavy protrusion just under the rear centerline, like a barrel was laid sideways through the bottom of the hull sticking out from under the pilot’s seat.
The fact that they’d come via superluminal drives, which the TX-49 wasn’t equipped with.
In fact, not even Bourne’s top of the line OF-28 had one. Only the Copernicus Spacer Corps’ experimental TX-55 had the space and power plant for a superluminal drive. Admiral Carrington had just committed a fortune in valuable starfighter prototypes to pull their fat out of the fire.
“Starstream Leader, this is Point Break Leader. Stand by for plasma barrage.”
Like their older counterparts, the 55 had dual plasma launchers tucked away under the side corners of the diamond and all twelve fighters cut loose with them at once, sending twenty four packets of ionized plasma screaming into the disassembler field at once. The magnetic field that kept the nanotech powered and suspended in the atmosphere began to fluctuate wildly. Two seconds after the first barrage Point Break squadron fired again. The magnetic field dissolved entirely.
“All right, Starstream,” Point Break leader called. “That’s us. Looks like that field is rebuilding itself down on the surface and will be back in this section of airspace in another ten minutes so I’d get a move on if I were you.”
“You heard the man,” Bourne said, feeling as is a massive weight on his chest was suddenly gone. “All pilots prepare to bail out. Check your flight suits to make sure they’re spaceworthy and punch out. Lander 42, we’d be much obliged for a pick up. Let’s try and get this done without anyone else buying it.”
He busied himself suiting actions to words and five minutes later, it was all done.
Writing Vlog – 6-1-2022
Just a quick update from me. The holiday weekend was kind.
The Gospel According to Earth – Introduction
Sometimes you start a project and it takes on a life of its own. One such project for me was the Triad World novels, which started off with the innocuous idea of telling a Huxley/Orwell style dystopian tale from the perspective of outsiders who stumbled upon the dystopia, rather than from the point of view of those who lived in the dystopia. This idea eventually became Schrodinger’s Book, a novel I started publishing here in March of 2018. This was long before I had the idea for the Roy Harper adventures or my current secret project, Burning Bright. I honestly expected the story to be one and done.
But about halfway through Schrodinger’s Book I had the idea for Martian Scriptures and I thought there might be something interesting to look at there. While I didn’t like Martian Scriptures as much as Schrodinger’s Book I did think it was a pretty decent story playing in the same general thematic area.
The problem was, by that point my narrative had lore. Which is to say there were rules and concepts that existed solely to describe the world which readers (and I, myself) were curious about and wanted to see carried through to their natural conclusion. While Schrodinger’s Book was built on the Huxley/Orwell foundation and Martian Scriptures was a similar look at the premise of Logan’s Run, one thing that had always bothered me about the dystopias I’d read was the question of sustainability. How are such complex societies built on such wildly inaccurate views of human nature to last for any length of time? What happens when reality comes into contact with the fictions these societies are founded on? What are the fault lines pressure will expose in them?
Fortunately, the lore of the Triad Worlds presented me with an excellent opportunity to explore that question, for there is no reality more pressing for Earth’s UNIGOV than the United Colonial Fleet. I just had to think about what kinds of contradictions outsiders would force on UNIGOV and work out what kind of story would be interesting to tell about said contradictions. It took a little longer than I thought it would but now we’re here.
I didn’t set out to write Schrodinger’s Book as a warning, so much as a thought experiment about how a slide into an Internet age despotism might look from the outside. I don’t write The Gospel According to Earth to seriously speculate on how an Internet age despot might be overthrown. Rather, I’m interested in how that despot might justify itself once in power. I want to examine what the good news UNIGOV offers to the cosmos is and how attempts to uphold that new world order will slowly crumble under their own weight.
I don’t think this is a prophecy, because I’m not sure any despot could as thoroughly and completely shape a society as the one we find in 1984, much less Schrodinger’s Book. The logistics are too difficult, for starters. But beyond that, the very delusions of utopia needed to create a dystopia put the leaders of such societies too out of touch with reality to truly wield the kind of power The Party or UNIGOV wield for any length of time. Which isn’t to say such delusional thinking isn’t frightening or dangerous. It’s just gong to destroy itself and everything it touches long before it can distort human nature to that extent, which in many ways strikes me as worse.
Regardless, the point of this tale is much the same as the point of any speculative fiction I write. It is to examine a wildly exaggerated situation and see if there are any insights into human nature which we can take away and perhaps apply to the more mundane, day to day situations we face.
And to entertain you. That is also important.
So it’s my hope that, as I wrap up the Triad World novels, you will find that the story entertains and applies. If you are fulfilled to any level beyond that, that’s just gravy.
Of course, The Gospel According to Earth is a sequel to two other stories, which you may have already gathered at this point. You can still read those stories here on this blog, by following the links below:
Schrodinger’s Book – https://natechenpublications.com/2018/03/16/schrodingers-book-introduction-and-chapter-one/
Martian Scriptures – https://natechenpublications.com/2020/05/01/martian-scriptures-introduction/
Like these previous tales, The Gospel According to Earth is a bit different from my typical fair in one important way. While I generally try to avoid profane or obscene language in my writing, these stories are exceptions. The goal is to try and portray real people in the realest ways possible, so I chose not to obscure coarse language in these stories. It’s an aesthetic choice I make for very particular reasons and I don’t try to go out of my way to fill the story with such language for shock value. I do put thought into the swearing in these stories.
However, I also don’t blame anyone who chooses to avoid such language in their entertainment. People have different standards concerning such language stemming from a host of different sources and that’s fine. This warning exists largely to help you evaluate whether this story will meet your standards or not. Please evaluate accordingly.
Our time with Martin Langley and the United Colonial Fleet is coming to an end but, for the moment, we still have a little more to spend with them. The strange things they’ve discovered on their return to the Homeworld haven’t all played out quite yet. Let’s join them for a little while longer, and see what they think of The Gospel According to Earth.
Writing Vlog – 5-25-2022
Talking about what I’m writing rather than the process of writing in this week’s vlog. YMMV.
Week Off – New Project Starting Soon!
Hello folks! Sorry this is late, blog upkeep has kind of slipped my mind this week. As is my usual habit, I’m taking a week off between essay writing and the beginning of a new fiction project. That project – The Gospel According to Earth – starts this coming Saturday! It’s the conclusion of the Triad Worlds novels and will probably run for the next six months or so. I hope you’re looking forward to it! See you then.
Writing Vlog – 5-20-2022
Uploading a little late due to faulty memory. Enjoy!
The Truth and Beauty – Manic Philosophy
A while ago I read Andrew Klavan’s memoir, The Great Good Thing. It was a fascinating recounting of the life of a man who struggled with his family, his place in the world and his fundamental beliefs, a man who did not fully find his place in the world until the eve of his fiftieth birthday. As a result I was very interested to read Klavan’s insights into the intersection between faith and art, which he has committed to paper in his latest book, The Truth and Beauty. In the introduction to this book, Klavan states that his wife (who reads his books first) found the book interesting but wasn’t sure if it was good. He reports that his answer was, “Of course it’s a good book. I just have to cut out all the bad parts.”
In this endeavor, he succeeded. There isn’t a bad section to this book. Unfortunately, it feels like the book itself would be stronger if he had polished up some of those bad parts to the standard of the rest and left them in, because I feel like it could really use some connective tissue in there.
This book is divided into three general sections. First, the introduction and statement of purpose. Second, an examination of the life and times of England’s great poets. Third, a meditation on the Gospels, with occasional reference to said poets to illustrate a point.
The core idea of this book is something I think is on point. By which I mean I agree with it 100%. Klavan is trying to grapple with the dichotomy of authenticity and performance. Human beings are not entirely authentic creatures nor are we entirely performative. We are both people pleasers and self-indulgent narcissists, we are both mold breakers and creatures of habit, we are creatures of thought and creatures of impulse. Our societies are structured to maximize natural roles and yet the iconoclast is a natural and vital role.
There’s several solid lines of reasoning to argue Jesus Christ harmonizes these two seemingly conflicting states into a single superposition. Klavan explores a couple of them in his book and I don’t have any problem with his reasoning.
Klavan also argues that the life and times of the English Romantic poets forced them to try and resolve this conflict as well. They had to sort out their own radical beliefs, the demands of human nature and the bedrock nature of reality. Klavan walks us through the time period and important events in the lives of the poets to make his case. I’m not an expert on these poets or the era. I can only take what Klavan presents at face value and, if it is all true, he does make an argument that the poets did find their ideas in conflict with their pursuit of art. It’s certainly compelling stuff to read.
Finally, Klavan expounds on the beauty of the Gospels, the way they show us many people, but Christ in particular, balancing the roles of performer and authentic person. We see that only Christ balances these two things perfectly, and this is what made people react to him so strongly.
What I find missing from all of this is a direct correlation between the Romantics and the Gospels. I understand that Wordsworth et al failed to balance the conflicts between authenticity and performance. The problem is that’s not a unique failing on their part, it is the human condition in general. Klavan speculates that their excellent art has stood the test of time because it points towards universal truths and does so beautifully, even if those artists didn’t live up to those truths and were not, themselves, beautiful. Fair enough, many such artists exist.
I just don’t see how the two sets of observations connect. Perhaps it is best to just read The Truth and Beauty as another memoir, a recounting of the facts, ideas and poetry that passed through Klavan’s mind as he was struggling his way to deeper understanding of the Gospels. It certainly works well that way. Perhaps others will have the flash of genius moment Klavan did as they read this. I didn’t have such a moment, nor was the direction Klavan’s thoughts moved during that revelation clear to me. That was what I hoped to get from the book, but didn’t. Perhaps the fact that I’ve been enamored with a similar idea for over a decade – I did a presentation on the Parables of Jesus, Chinese wisdom literature and the unity of character and applied morals in college – has clouded my ability to take in new thoughts on the matter. That can happen to creative minds. Once we have an approach to a topic in mind taking on a new one can be difficult.
All in all, I enjoyed reading The Truth and Beauty a great deal. It was interesting, humorous, informative and grappled with big ideas. But I didn’t get the insight into how two very deep subjects connect that I had hoped and if that’s what you’re really hoping for I’m not sure you will, either. If you’re okay with that, or if you’re just looking for a high level overview of the English Romantics, you may enjoy this book. And, of course, you may be able to pick up on parts of this book that I could not. But I’m not entirely sure I can recommend this book to people trying to pick up a deeper understanding of truth and beauty vis a vie the Gospels, because I didn’t find it here. It’s hard for me to parse the worth of the book in that respect, however, because I have also been caught up in the questions Klavan wrestles with for most of my life. Your mileage may vary. I would recommend reading the sample or checking your library before buying.
I’ve been kind of hard on Klavan’s writing here. But I do think this is a good book and I hope to see more nonfiction from Klavan in the future.
Writing Vlog – 05/11/2022
Writing vlog for the week follows up on plans, tries to set new ones. We’ll see how things go this time around.
Scars: Of Rats and Men
If gratitude is the measure of a man, then J. Ishiro Finney’s Scars is a story about taking the measure of two men who are at their lowest. By men, I mean one man and one genetically modified rat.
Our heroes are James, retied astronaut and garbage disposal man, and Max, an augmented bomb disposal rat with near human intelligence. For those of you not in the know, rats trained to find and mark land mines already exist in our world today! They do not have near human level intelligence, although I personally know many people who lack the ingenuity of the average rat, but they make up for it through a well-trained sense of smell. Max is a logical extension of this concept, a rat with the intelligence to also disarm the land mines they find and reclaim land long unusable due to the danger the landmines present.
Or at least Max was that. When we meet him in the story, Max is retired from that line of work and now makes ends meet as James’s emotional support animal.
James was an astronaut who towed debris out of orbit so it would no longer pose a danger to space lanes and satellites. Then he lost his leg in an accident we don’t initially know the full details of. With a prosthetic, PTSD and a host of pills to take there’s no way James is ever getting sent back into orbit again. James and Max are a pair of oddballs with long histories in interesting and dangerous careers that leave them with very strong opinions on the world and how they should live in it.
Scars is a novella and as a result it’s difficult to discuss the plot without recapping it in its entirety. I don’t plan to do that here, you’ll have to read it if you want an idea of the story beyond what you get here. The character development is great, the characters themselves are interesting and the plot… well, it’s very simple but perfectly suited to the story. Not every narrative needs politics, romance and betrayal. The story is mostly a character study and it studies those characters quite well in the space available.
Finney has done his research. He’s looked into the mechanics of space flight and the dangers therein. He’s a longtime rat owner and it shows, my knowledge of the temperament and behaviors of rats has expanded exponentially based entirely on reading this one story. Admittedly, I knew almost nothing before.
There’s also a lot of interesting angles explored through the characters backgrounds, which are both similar and wildly different. Both are used to high stress and highly regimented lifestyles whereas they’ve responded to their changes in circumstances in very different ways. Psychology was clearly a part of how these characters were developed and it’s quite satisfying to see. All that said, this is not a perfect story.
For starters, we end with James making a resolve to change his behavior. That’s admirable and leaves a door open for further stories exploring how he acts this out but I would’ve liked a conclusion that shows us his first steps along that road. Perhaps that would have overshadowed the ending. I didn’t see the story in previous drafts and I know finding the right ending point is difficult but I was left a little unsatisfied. Given everything I know about James I’m not sure how well he can follow up his new direction. I would like to know how rocky the road would be for him, especially since we may never see him and Max again.
Speaking of that little rat, Max is a great character but he’s a little one note. He has one major emotional beat in the story and the rest of the time he’s pretty much the same as always. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of character. I just felt like Max has the potential to be much more and it wasn’t explored as much as it could’ve been. Some of this is a choice of medium – novellas are short, they don’t dig into characters as much as novels do. Some of it is undoubtedly the author working to keep the point of his story sharp. My critiques here are more nitpicks than outright flaws, matters of taste more than errors.
If you’re looking for a short, interesting sci-fi story delving deep into the nature of two interesting characters, I recommend to you J. Ishiro Finney’s Scars.
Nate Chen Publications 