Green Cleaning (Part 4- Looking back to see a better future)

"Organic chemicals are widely used as ingredients in household products. Paints, varnishes, and wax all contain organic solvents, as do many cleaning, disinfecting, cosmetic, degreasing, and hobby products. Fuels are made up of organic chemicals. All of these products can release organic compounds while you are using them, and, to some degree,when they are stored."

-from the EPA.

Many Americans are poisoning themselves with the products they use to clean their homes- and this information isn't just coming from nontoxic cleaner manufacturers like Seventh Generation- it's coming from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Last November I made the switch to green cleaning. I'd like to say it was a gesture of my deep commitment to protecting the environment for future generations, but the truth is, I made the switch to improve the health of myself and my husband today.

Here's some more cheery news from the EPA:

"Research shows that some VOCs can cause chronic and acute health effects at high concentrations, and some are known carcinogens. Low to moderate levels of multiple VOCs may also produce acute reactions."

What household cleaning products produce these damaging VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)? The answer lies under the bathroom sink, in the linen closet, wherever you keep your cleaners. Products such as chlorine bleach, ammonia, oven cleaner, and toilet cleaner produce damaging VOCs both when you're using them, and when they're sitting seemingly harmlessly beneath the bathroom sink.

I have none of these products left in my home. So how do I clean? By traveling back in time and looking at what people used to clean their homes before these harsh chemicals were on the market. There is nothing in my home that can't be cleaned with vinegar, baking soda, and vegetable soap.

Vinegar can be used in place of chlorine bleach to remove stains. Half a cup left to sit in the toilet gets the bowl sparkling clean. A solution of vinegar and water cleans glass, shower doors, the refrigerator. Vinegar's acidic properties dissolve mineral build-up, and give it disinfecting properties. If your child broke into the cleaning cabinet and drank the bottle of vinegar, he might get sick to his stomach, but if he drank the same amount of chlorine bleach or toilet cleaner he would die if you didn't make it to the hospital in time. Even if he doesn't get into the cleaners, the EPA says it's possible their presence in the cabinet may cause him to develop cancer when he gets older. What do you want in your house- vinegar or toilet cleaner? Most people don't have to care about saving the whales to answer this question.

Baking soda is my abrasive cleaner of choice. It scrubs pots and pans, stove tops, scours bathroom tile, and eliminates grease and grime wherever I find it. It gets rid of odors in the refrigerator and on carpet and upholstery. (Bon Ami is a household-friendly and environmentally-friendly step up from baking soda for tough scouring jobs).

For everything that can't be cleaned with vinegar or baking soda, there's soap. But before we go any farther, let's talk about exactly what soap is.

As I learned in the fourth grade, soap is a surfactant, a substance that keeps water from beading up so the water comes closer in contact with dirty surfaces. The closer the water gets to the dirty surface, the easier those surfaces are to clean. Until World War I, all surfactants were soaps, and they were made from fatty oils derived from animal or vegetable sources. Wartime shortages of vegetable and animal fats during WW led to the development of synthetic surfactants in Germany. These surfactants used petroleum as the "fatty" oil source. These "artificial soaps" were called detergents, and became "widely available in the United States in the 1940's...today, detergents have all but replaced soap-based laundry products." (Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook)

Petroleum-based products haven't stopped their domination in the laundry room. Our dish soap, bath soap, all-purpose cleaners and countless household and health and beauty products are made from petroleum. Using a bottle of dish soap causes many of the same environmental problems as filling your car with oil, such as depletion of natural resources, and pollution and contamination from drilling. What's more, use of these products (especially in higher than intended concentration) pollutes your home! Detergents are less severely damaging to your health than the other cleaning agents we've talked about today, so I'll leave you with this thought: which would you rather wash your baby's bottle with- detergent made from petroleum, or soap made from vegetable oil?

Most vegetable based soaps on the market today are made from coconut oil- this goes for laundry soap or shampoo. Brands like Seventh Generation and Mrs.Meyers manufacture coconut-derived soaps. You'll also find dozens of health and beauty brands whose products are derived from coconuts instead of petroleum. Soaps are gentler on your skin, your clothes, your house, your health. And they're a heck of a lot gentler on the environment. To promote its products, Seventh Generation claims that if every U.S. household replaced their purchase of dish washing detergent with dish washing soap, the savings in petroleum could heat and cool 4,800 American homes for an entire year.

That's a lot of oil.

I think a lot of people feel that being environmentally responsible will lower their standard of living. This simply isn't true. In many cases, what's kinder to our outside homes is kinder to our inside homes and our personal well-being. Being environmentally responsible means being aware of the products you buy, and knowing your options. You don't have to buy petroleum based products and top-loading washing machines- there are alternatives. And green cleaning doesn't mean going back to the stone ages. Did you know a dishwasher run at full capacity uses about half the energy of washing dishes by hand? (Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook).

Every person, every town, city, province, nation has a unique set of physical and cultural needs. In order to make the Earth a good place to live, an effort needs to be made by government, industry, and individuals to establish guidelines, innovate solutions, and make choices that find a balance between our needs today and our needs tomorrow. Last night I heard Vice President Gore speak at the Oscars about environmental concerns as a "moral issue" as opposed to a political issue. I'd say it's an issue of survival.

This concludes the practical portion of my Green Cleaning series. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at coconut fuel and other nutty solutions to pollution problems. I don't know how many of them will be viable in the future, but it's a lot of fun to see what people come up with, and imagine some of my own.

Green Cleaning- Part 3 (Drippy Drying Racks in Brooklyn)

I was kindly invited to spend a week in an Italian country home. The scene was a small town in Northern Italy. My guestroom window opened onto the family vegetable garden, and beyond I could see people bicycling down dirt roads past vineyards. But to get a complete picture of an Italian village or city, you can't forget the laundry.

It's hanging everywhere: on collapsible drying racks in the front yard, on balconies. In the city flapping sheets are protected from pigeon poop or mop water from upstairs by yellow and green plastic sheets (in Turin I learned the hard way how important these plastic sheets can be). The visitor's first impression chugging into the train station of a city of 2,000 or 2,000,000 are the apartment buildings that face the tracks, all fluttering with laundry.

The point here is that Italian homes never have dryers, and that they do an extraordinary amount of laundry per capita.

I had many long discussions in Italy trying to explain why on earth Americans buy dryers. I heard all the arguments against them: they take up space, they consume costly energy (and put an unnecessary strain on the environment), they shorten the life of expensive clothing and family linens. In fact, when I lived in Italy, I was more than happy to sun myself on the balcony and hang the laundry out to dry. It was a pleasant task, and not so much more work than monitoring the dryer. And, sure enough, clothes never shrank, and they lasted so much longer.

About a week after living in Brooklyn, I was back to the dryer. Why?

Hanging the clothes out to dry is a great idea if you've got a big back yard or if you live in a place where every apartment, no matter how small, comes equipped with a balcony. Here I have no balcony, and certainly no big back yard. So I set up my drying rack in the bedroom to dry my husband's thick, cotton socks. The next morning they were still dripping wet.

See, Italy has a very dry climate. Here I'm in an oceanic, at times swampy climate. Humidity is my biggest household problem. The thick terry cloth towel that dried in 2-3 hours in Italy takes 2-3 days to dry in Brooklyn, and the moisture it adds to the already damp bedroom causes mold. This environmentally-friendly laundry solution is possible in Italy, but impossible in humid climates.

Back to my sojourn with Italian friends. Our hostess was allergic to my cats, so they were camped out in the spacious guest bathroom/laundry room. Every time my hostess needed to go in to do laundry, I had to stick the kitties into their carriers for her.

The cats went into the carrier for laundry three to five times a day. No kidding. This is for a household of two adults (and two guests, who only used the washer twice that week). So, what's up with that? Unlike my American friends, the Italians I knew would often wear the same outfit several days in a row, only changing their underthings. Without a doubt Americans wash their clothes more frequently. So where does all this laundry come from?

It comes from the fact that Italians rarely use disposable paper products. The fabric of Italian lives is literally fabric. A cotton or linen tablecloth is on the table at every single meal. Napkins are always made of fabric, never paper. Handkerchiefs are used instead of Kleenex. Paper towels, or carta da cucina, are only used for drying delicate washed herbs or draining fat from cooked meat, so all household cleaning is done with rags. Almost every act of cooking and cleaning involves linens, and they must be kept clean.

While transitioning between two apartments, I went a few months doing all the laundry by hand. Knuckles red, arms aching, I would scrub tablecloths, bedsheets, blue jeans, and bath towels in the sink. Rinsing them was the worst part, and you really haven't lived until you've tried to squeeze a pair of blue jeans dry. Last month while watching the film 3-Iron, I noticed that the typical Korean homes depicted in the film didn't have laundry machines. The protagonist of the film made a point of doing the laundry for his "hosts," which was accomplished by scrubbing clothes with bar soap on a textured rubber mat in the shower. I wish I'd learned this technique before those months of dunking clothes in the sink.

On the happy day I got my first Italian washing machine, I was overjoyed. I put the first load in and turned on the machine. The cycle lasted an hour and a half (opposed to the typical 20 minute cycle of an American washer). Why? Because if you're going to scrub your toilet with a rag and then reuse it, you want that puppy clean. I quickly learned the Italian way of life was a lot kinder on the rain forest, and created less garbage for those landfills I talked about on Friday. But I questioned the environmental friendliness of using gallons of potable water and gallons of petroleum-based laundry detergents, bleach, powdered disinfectant, and fabric softener.

Fortunately, environmentally-friendly laundry products are on the market in the U.S. and in Europe (see Green Cleaning- Part 4).

As for water waste, European front-loading washers use a third to half the water of a typical American top-loading model. Front-loading machines consume 68% less energy than top-loaders, and get clothes dryer on the spin cycle, reducing dryer time. They use significantly less soap, and are able to wash clothes at high enough temperatures to disinfect, eliminating the need for environmentally toxic bleach. Their drum washing system has been proven to significantly increase the life of clothes (statistics mentioned above are from Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook).

Front-loading washers are available in the U.S.- but they have only a sliver of the market share. Why? Easy answer: front-loading washing machines cost more at the store. Top-loaders are comparatively cheap. Despite the fact that water, soap, and especially energy costs would save a family money in the long run, the fast, cheap solution is the one that sells. So, is everyone in Europe rich? Why are they dishing out money on expensive front-loaders? Another easy answer: they are the only type you can buy when you go to the store. Less environmentally friendly models simply aren't available to the consumer.

We've already seen legislation passed to curtail emissions by restricting the kinds of cars and trucks automobile manufacturers can sell in America. Why not do the same thing with a washer?

Nifty textured mat or no, it is hard to envision a future world where Americans do their laundry by hand. But generations of Europeans (and likely other cultures, as well) have been using environmentally-friendly laundry techniques, and the appliances and detergents they use are keeping up with the times. The U.S. definitely has something to learn about laundry from folks across the Atlantic.

We haven't washed our hands of laundry yet. In tomorrow's installment of green cleaning, we are going to discuss detergents and cleaners of all kinds, and how the cleaning agent you choose can make a significant difference not only for the environment, but for the health of your family, today.

Green Cleaning- Part 2 (Signing Your Garbage)

Whether you're living wild off the land in the Australian outback or kicking up your heels in Manhattan, everybody, I mean everybody, makes trash. Trash could be as simple as fruit rinds, animal bones, and human waste buried in the ground, or as complex as an old refrigerator that has to be disposed of carefully, draining the poisonous Freon and removing the doors so children can't lock themselves inside and suffocate.

So, with trash the big question is, how do we get rid of it?

When I moved to Italy, I couldn't take all my stuff with me- I had a lot to unload. We gave appliances to family and called the Volunteers of America to take furniture, exercise equipment, kitchen things. The rest of our unwanted belongings filled up the industrial-sized dumpster outside our house- four weeks in a row.

Trash takes up space.

When we moved into our first Italian apartment, understanding the garbage bureaucracy was quite a challenge. There were black bags for regular garbage, yellow bags for plastic bottles, I think blue was for paper and cardboard, pink for cans and bottles, and green was the color for biological garbage (known affectionately by the locals as bio, known in our house as the "stinky trash"). You've got it, the Italians recycled food. The bio garbage went to some communal compost heap in the country. Egg shells, coffee grinds, leftover pasta, cheese rinds, cat food covered in sock lint- anything that could biodegrade went in there. Separating all those categories was fairly space consuming in my tiny kitchen, as I needed bins to keep everything separate. I also had to keep track of alternating collection days. Later in Turin, the process was simplified by marked dumpsters practically outside my front door. No more color-coded bags of garbage piled in my kitchen. On my return to the states it took me about a month to stop reflexively pausing every time I dumped carrot and potato peels in with the regular trash.

While visiting my father-in-law I was introduced to a whole new way of thinking about garbage- by the pound. He opted not to pay for garbage collection, but instead to load all his trash into the back of his car and drive it to the dump. There he was presented with a game card. He drove from station to station, and workers weighed his trash and his various forms of recycling. The game card tallied the weight of the recycled material against the weight of the garbage, and he paid the difference by the pound as he left.

Trash has weight, ergo mass.

Here in Brooklyn I needed to get rid of a large appliance still in working order. I called the Salvation Army, and after nearly an hour of run-around was told they wouldn't come take it. When I told my neighbor this story, he laughed, and helped me carry the appliance to the curb. He'd had a similar experience with the Salvation Army, and told me around here all I needed to do was leave my item on the curb a few days before collection. He'd gotten rid of a working refrigerator and broken water heater that way. Someone would pick it up, he told me- and, sure enough, my item disappeared. Yesterday on the way to buy bread I almost tripped on a toaster oven- a sticky note on the side read, "still works."

Growing up in Iowa garage sale Saturdays were thrilling family treasure hunts.

In Turin used wardrobe bins were all over the neighborhood. Homeless people broke into them overnight, and in the morning immigrant women and children picked through the used shirts, trousers, and shoes.

Trash can be reused.

My grocery service delivers all my produce and deli items with stickers that bear my name and address. Someday when future generations are mining a landfill they're going to come across my name. "Heather Pagano of XYZ St., Brooklyn dumped her Styrofoam banana padding here." I know the service is just trying to keep my bananas from arriving smashed, but my name is on that stuff! People are going to know I'm responsible. I actually stopped buying certain items because of the packaging. Ecologically unsound packaging costs my grocery service at least $7.50 a week Could ecological packaging ever become a selling point? Only if consumers are signing their names to their garbage- literally or figuratively.

We're responsible for the things we don't want anymore.

And what about a world where the cost of garbage disposal is super high? This is already true in places like Japan, where the disposal of furniture or appliances requires the Japanese to go to city hall, fill out a form, and purchase a costly seal they attach to the used item so collectors know the pick-up has been paid for. What if trash collection became too expensive for families to afford? Imagine people just chucking their trash outside- what a mess! The freelancer junk market would boom as it collected, refurbished, and resold used goods. Services like eBay would be flooded with remade junk. How would the economy continue to flow if purchasing items became a liability?

The fewer places there are to go with the garbage, the more costly its removal.

In a sense, modern man isn't that different in his trash technology than the first caveman who buried the remains of his meal. We can't do much more than dig a hole and bury stuff underground. We've learned a lot about previous generations by examining the stuff they buried, or that got buried by earthquake, flood, volcanic eruption, time. We are putting the signature of our civilization into landfills. Someone is going to be digging through it someday, looking for non-renewable resources we thoughtlessly threw away. I wonder what they'll think of us?

Green Cleaning- Part I (Our Inside and Outside Homes)

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced its Fourth Assessment Report on February 2nd, global warming finally made significant headlines in the American press. Global warming was considered a fact of life six years ago when I moved to Italy. I was in Turin for the 2003 European heat wave, one of many climactic crises brought on by global warming. I spent the agonizingly hot days, like many Europeans, with no air conditioning. I lay on the sofa in a half-conscious daze, occasionally remembering to eat gelato. 20,000 Italians who weren't as young and strong as I was died.

The next summer, still in Turin, my husband and I bought an air conditioner. The torture of the past summer overrode knowledge that air conditioning units would only make the heat problems worse in the future.

And isn't that where we all are, those of us with the means to choose whether or not to buy the new A/C, the new car, the next can of furniture polish? See, human beings are wired to survive the day- which is why I bought that A/C, and human beings are also wired to care for themselves and their loved ones. Parents change diapers, people clean their toilets, wash their windows, use wads of paper towels when the cat spits up a hairball. So we're faced with a situation where the products we use to make our inside homes inhabitable are making our outside home uninhabitable. What can we do? More importantly, what will we do?

I think this is a fantastic discussion for people who are writing about the future. Not only will global warming change the fabric of our future world, but the things we do to try to prevent drastic environmental consequences (whether they work, or not) will color our everyday lives. Having lived overseas, I've seen that local climate and culture play a huge role in the way people keep house. I'm talking things that sound insignificant: how people do the laundry, how people clean the bathroom, how people take out trash. We're learning that all these "insignificant" daily acts have a huge impact on the environment.

So this week I'm going to share some of my experiences of the seemingly small differences in how Italians go about their daily lives, and do a little research to learn how things are done in a variety of places. I'll examine why some of these foreign practices are only suited to certain climates and cultures, and discuss the possible impacts of what might happen if selected local practices were implemented on a global basis. How might the typical American house be changed? And to conclude the series, I'll discuss what I learned about green cleaning when I went cold turkey last November, and how green cleaning (which comes from a previous generation, not a foreign culture) could change the touch, the taste, the smell, the experience of living in future homes.

The Garden of Eden

I have a new post up on the Friggin' Write blog. I discuss The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway. The Garden of Eden is interesting not only because it was published after the author's suicide, but because the main character is heavily based on Hemingway, himself.

One Rat Short

Writer/director Alex Weil had ten minutes and eighteen seconds to make me cry over two rats and an empty cheese curl bag, and he did it.

I was drawn to this film by the thirty second teaser on iTunes. Thirty seconds was just enough to get an idea of the animation style, and to draw me into a world I know all too well, the NYC subway. One Rat Short was a candidate at this year's Sundance Film Festival. (One Rat Short and all the other Sundance shorts are available for download on iTunes).

It's hard to say too much about ten minutes and eighteen seconds of film without giving everything away. Let me point out a few reasons why the film is cool.

1. Setting. This film was animated by a someone who, like me, has logged hours staring down at subway tracks waiting for a train. The contrast between the grimy subway opening of the film and the pristine white of the new world into which our protagonist falls is striking.

2. Characters. There are four characters in this film. The protagonist is a big, grey, hairy rat (don't worry, he looks cute, not disgusting). Just as the settings contrast with grimy and pristine, the two main characters contrast- one grey and dirty, the other sleek, white, and clean. Other characters include a troublesome cheese curl bag (the animation on the bag is so lovely it is called a "ballet" on IMDb), and a robot whose gears don't all line up, if you know what I mean.

3. No words. Not a single syllable is uttered during the course of this short. I'm finding that more and more of my favorite films, such as Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring and 3-Iron by Ki-Duk Kim have very few words, or none at all. An amazing piece of cinema really doesn't need them.

An Interview with Lindsay Noseworth

Today we are joined by Lindsay Noseworth, whose rôles include Master in Arms of the Inconvenience, and the not unburdensome responsibility of being second-in-command of said airship. Mr. Noseworth has stepped up to the plate, as it were- although playing baseball is difficult, if not impossible aboard an airship- to be the role model and all-around conscience of the crew of the Inconvenience, also known as the Chums of Chance. Mr. Noseworth has agreed to discuss events which unfold during "Light Over the Ranges," this being the first of five books contained by the larger, door-stopping tome, Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon.

Heather: Mr. Noseworth, could you tell us a little something about the Chums of Chance?

L.N.: Well, certainly I could, seeing as I, myself, am one of their number. The Chums of Chance is an organization that turns boys into men, and teaches them to fly- that is, to fly on an airship and go on all sorts of adventures some of which, perhaps, you've already read.

Heather: Can you give us some examples?

L.N: Goodness gracious, where to start. There was there was our top-secret assignment in Washington*, during which, by the way, we came across Pugnax.
(*see, The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit)

Heather: And who is Pugnax?

L.N.: Oh, he's just a dog with an annoying habit of lallygagging on deck reading books, and generally getting underfoot and being a nuisance.

Heather: Excuse me, did you say the dog reads?

L.N.: Incessantly. Well, there was the time we went to Mexico**, and the whole mess we had to straighten out in Hawaii***, which happens to be where Miles learned to play the ukelele.
(** see The Chums of Chance in Old Mexico; *** see The Chums of Chance and the Curse of the Great Kahuna)

Heather: Miles Blundell, that would be, correct?

L.N.: Exactly. Fine enough fellow, as they go, but he nearly precipitates disaster upon the Inconvenience, endangering not only the crew but everyone underneath the airship before we've gotten more than a dozen pages into Pynchon's chronicle of our adventures.

Heather: That brings us to an interesting question. Your branch of the Chums of Chance organization has received rather more press, shall we say, than other crews of hardy fellows trying to keep their noses clean as they keep the peace. Would you comment on how Mr. Pynchon's rendering of the tale in question compares to the vast literary output other authors have produced in your honor?

L.N. To be honest, ma'am, I've seen better work than Against the Day. For starters, he left Chums of Chance right out of the title of the book. Going to make it hard to sell, that's for sure. Our young readers won't know the book's about us, and unless they're smarter than me, they won't know what the title means, at all.

Heather: A point well taken. Beyond the title do you have any other complaints?

L.N.: Well, don't get me wrong, Mr. Pynchon has clearly done his best, and put in untold hours scratching his pen. But he could have saved himself a whole lot of work if he'd kept the story more to the Chums of Chance. See, every few chapters, he'll pick some fellow who shares a meal, a song, an afternoon's work with us, and just goes running off from the Inconvenience chasing after this fellow. Not only that, we stop the whole story to go back and learn the details of their lives, and sometimes the details of their parents' lives or their children's lives. And I hate to say it, but not all these characters are folks you'd invite to Sunday dinner, if you know what I mean. Some of them are fools, no better or worse than the rest of us, but some of them are unemployed, have wives who run off with magicians, some are dynamiters, some are murderers-- some are even communists. And I just don't think that's the sort of thing our young readers should have their impressionable young minds exposed to.

Heather: Thanks for shedding light on the novel today, Mr. Noseworth. I trust your crew is, by now, missing your inspiring presence. I leave you to your duties.

Stranger Than Fiction

The very first time I picked up a book by my favorite science fiction author, Robert Heinlein, I didn't like it. The book was Number of the Beast. It had been recommended by a friend, but I just didn't' see where Heinlein was going with all the drivel about who was in charge of what on the Gay Deceiver. There were only four people, for crying out loud. Zebadiah, Deety and her Dad, and Hilda were running for their lives, and all they could talk about was marriage and rank. Come on. Four people. Get in the Gay Deceiver and get away from the black hats, or the lot of you deserve to be blown to smithereens!

Eventually I slogged through the pecking order chapters and began an adventure that changed the way I think about fiction. The more I read in the genre, the more I saw this theme of selecting the appropriate crew for the mission into the unknown. See, when a small group of people is suddenly isolated from their family, friends, boss- in short, from the entire cultural fabric of civilization- that tiny group becomes civilization unto itself. They have to provide all needs for each other, professional and psychological, and do so very far away from home. There's a lot of discussion about who should be chosen based on skill set and social lubrication. Do we send all men? All women? Couples in even number? Married or unmarried?

In 2005 Technovelgy.com addressed this issue and quoted from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land to illustrate the similarities between problems faced by Heinlein's fictional mission to Mars and the actual mission to Mars being proposed in 2005.

So when I read about Astronaut Lisa Nowak in the news, it brings to mind questions that science fiction writers have been asking for a long time: what's the best way to avoid conflict in social systems when a small group of people loses contact with our established social supports? The buzz about a mission to Mars in 2005 produced several articles on the challenge of keeping a group of people far from home for a proposed three years. Jay C. Buckley cited psychological adaptation first in his list of biomedical dangers to the crew. You got it, psychological concerns came before bone and muscle mass loss and cellular damage from radiation. Buckley believed the psychological challenge could be overcome through the use of training and a careful selection process. The reason you'll find Nowak in the "science and space" column of USA Today instead of on the crime blotter, is because she looks like an example of bad selection process. NASA mentions this problem in the article I cited above, saying

NASA spokesman Doug...Peterson said it's also too early to know whether NASA's process for choosing astronauts would be affected by Nowak's situation....Astronaut selection is highly rigorous.

Yet NASA flight surgeon, Johnathan Clarke, says
the agency has turned a blind eye to both astronauts' mental troubles and their extramarital affairs


So as little as I enjoy the details of the psychological breakdown of a woman and the resulting assault, it's clear that this news story will be in the minds of those who select the pioneers of the future, and those who are writing about them.

Leitmotif and Lightsabers

Pop your favorite movie into the DVD player, turn off the lights, and turn off the sound. What's the first thing you notice? You can't hear the actors talking, right? Come on, by now you've got all Han Solo's lines memorized (you could also turn on the subtitles). Dialog is no longer a problem, so what's your next insight? The neighbor's dog is barking, the ice maker in the refrigerator makes a lot of noise. Ok, you've had your moment of zen, now back to the movie. Depending on the film and your personality, you've noticed that your movie experience is missing the cool lightsaber sound effects and- wait for it- the soundtrack.

A good soundtrack can tell the story almost without the dialog, sound effects, (and dare we say without the video?). Depending on the successful realization of the director's vision, the soundtrack can take on a variety of roles during the course of a movie. It can tell the story, or it can act as a foil to what is happening on screen. Today I'm going to talk about what happens when the soundtrack tells the story. It accomplishes this by describing a character, a setting (place), or an event.

Let's take John Williams' Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope as an example. Who can forget the endearing "Princess Leia's Theme?" Think Princess Leia, you see the two buns on the sides of her head, maybe get a flash of her bending toward R2-D2 to send her call for help to Ben Kenobi, and you hear the lilting flute melody that is associated with Leia throughout Episodes IV, V, and VI. Other tracks on the Episode IV soundtrack paint pictures of places (the quirky "Moisture Farm" theme or the gorgeous French horn solo, "Binary Sunset"). Some melodies depict events (like "The Battle of Yavin.")

Associating a particular musical theme with a character, place, or event is called leitmotif.

Leitmotif was loved by opera composers, and it is still a mainstay of our dramatic soundtrack composers, today. Most of my favorite soundtracks use leitmotif, and you can learn a lot about what's important to the theme of the film by examining the leitmotifs or, to sound less like my music history prof, by examining the track names on the CD. A look at the Star Wars soundtracks shows that events make up a lot of the themes, but characters and places are also very important. Another of my favorites, Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, has a lot to do with places: "The Bridge Of Khazad Dum," "Lothlorien," "The Great River," as well as titles from events in the film. What a great way for the the filmmakers to translate Tolkein's love of names of places into leitmotifs that use music to paint a picture of the landscape.

Ok, now you can turn the sound back on your DVD. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the music.

Free Stuff- How to Find Your True Name pdf

I've added a new section to my website where you can download free stories to read, enjoy, and send to your friends. Check out the new page or download the first pdf of the series right from my blog.

"How to Find Your True Name"
by Heather Pagano

A light-hearted short fantasy about the nature of Truth, Beauty, Unsecured Debt, Public Toilets, and Love.



HowToFindYourTrueName.pdf

Apologies to Columbus, Ohio

The best one-liner I've read in quite some time comes from Thomas Pynchon's latest release, Against the Day. Now, I've never been to Columbus, Ohio, but trust me, character Merle Rideout has good reason for being fed up with Pynchon's fictional Columbus.

Here's the quote:

"If the U.S. was a person," he [Merle] later became fond of saying, "and it sat down, Columbus Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness." -Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

Hilarious. What makes it so funny?

1. The line draws a funny connect the dot picture, leaving the reader to connect the last dot. The fact that we complete the joke ourselves makes it really hit home.
2. The line is not only in character (it's hard to see that out of context) but it develops the character. Merle didn't just come out and say butt, keister, heiny, or ass. He found a roundabout way of making his crude observation without using impolite words. Interesting.

This one-liner has been tickling my brain since Thursday. Maybe now that I've written it down and figured out why it got stuck there, I can finally get it out of my head.

Intelligence Loves Company

"I, Rowboat" by Cory Doctorow from his short story collection, Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present.

This story is chock full of cool ideas. The title, for starters, is super. Robbie the rowboat is one of the last of the AIs on earth who hasn't committed suicide. Why are all the AIs voluntarily shutting down their consciousnesses? The answer is that there are no humans left on earth to play with, anymore. Humans have all abandoned their meat puppet shells (Doctorow's terms) and uploaded their consciousnesses to the noosphere.

Robbie the rowboat keeps on chugging because he's a convert to Asimovism (an AI religion based on Asimov's three laws of robotics) and because he gets to interact with sort-of human beings from time to time. See, Robbie's in the tourism industry. He oversees two non-conscious meat puppets who rent their bodies to humans in the noosphere so they can have a vacation in physical form. The vacationers spend their time scuba diving near Osprey reef (the reef becomes a major character in the story).

Doctorow tackles some pretty big issues, like what is consciousness, what is intelligence, what is humanity. Ideas as lofty as this are expressed in the narrative:

“The reason for intelligence is intelligence...Intelligence wants to exist, to spread itself, to compute itself. You already know this, or you wouldn’t have chosen to stay aware...Why did humans create intelligent machines? Because intelligence loves company.”

The ideas in the story are embodied through the adventures of the sweet, self-effacing Robbie. His adventures live in a world that grows more complex and engaging in proportion with the excitement of the story, which is what makes for fun reading. Here's my favorite line from the story, near the climax of the tale:

"Robbie...was panicking, something he hadn’t known he could do as an AI, but there it was. It was like having a bunch of sub-system collisions, program after program reaching its halting state."

The only problem with the story was the denouement. In my opinion, it would be much improved by ending with the words: "Sorry, I just don’t see the difference anymore" (the transformation of character is so great, that the reader loses connection with Robbie after this point). But this small issue hardly keeps "I, Rowboat" from being one of my favorites in the collection, so far.

Pluralism and the Language of the Future

Lots of science fiction writers weave future language into the fabric of their created universe. Orwell's 1984 had Newspeak. Joss Whedon's Firefly posits the dual spread of English and Chinese through the colonized universe. The real-life constructed language, Esperanto, is such a mainstay of visions of the future, that its use is parodied in the sf Britcom, Red Dwarf.

Why so much fuss about language? For one thing, writers know our everyday experiences and cultural identity are colored by the languages we speak. It's also an attempt to avoid unthinking ethnocentrism. Given the prominent place English holds in the international community today, it's especially tempting for sf writers to assume a future society where everyone speaks English.

So my interest was really piqued by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow's discussion of the place of non-English languages in the future. Their book, The Story of French, may have started with the history of the language, but it brought readers up to date with statistics and events from 2006, and predicted language trends of the future.

Nadeau and Barlow explained that, while French was once the default international language for diplomacy, business, and education, English took over that role in the 20th Century. The aftermath of African colonization, French-speaking Canadians, and the spread of goodwill French-teaching organizations across the globe, have kept French on IV, but it was being wiped out on the international affairs stage (did you know the official language of the European Union is English?). An organization was created to promote the use of French on the international scene, but Nadeau and Barlow claim the Francophonie was only so much hot air until they hit upon a key idea: language pluralism.

France was once (and still is) the figurehead for democracy. Now the French language is becoming the figurehead of language pluralism- that is, of using more than one language. The trend in international bodies such as the UN, is to move toward a single official language (English) for efficiency. This leaves those who aren't native speakers at a disadvantage, and contributes to what Nadeau and Barlow call "mental colonization."

Waving the banner for more than one language in international diplomacy and cooperation, French speakers have captured the attention of other nations who don't want to see their languages disappear. That hot air Francophonie organization for promoting French is being joined by nations who don't even have large French-speaking populations (though they must prove strong French linguistic and cultural presence in their national identity to join- check out all 55 member flags). Momentum is slowly gaining for the idea that French is "the other language." Speaking French gives non-native English speakers an alternative to speaking English, and gives them hope that their language, too, might survive.

Just to be clear- I love English. I even spent several years teaching English to non-native speakers who wanted to learn for both practical reasons and because they just liked the language! But I'd hate to envision a future where there were no new French books for the September rentrée, where there were no new languages for me to study. Language is intertwined with culture, and learning a foreign language gives us a window to that culture. Efforts of the French-speaking community to promote linguistic and cultural pluralism may change the color of life in the space colonies of our future, and in the space colonies of our dreams.

Guest Authoring General Fiction Posts

I've been invited to participate as a guest author at the Friggin' Write Blog. I submit posts on all things literary every other Wednesday. Today's post is all about The Body Artist by Don DeLillo.

My first post answered the question What is Literature? My definition eschews attempts to classify literature as stuff that's not spec fiction, and goes deeper to explore the relationship between literature and the use of language.

Doctorow's "I, Robot"

The fourth story in Cory Doctorow's new science fiction anthology, Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, really gets the attitude Asimov's human detective, Elijah Baley, has toward his robotic colleague. Doctorow puts an interesting twist on robopsychologist, Susan Calvin, by making her the disreputable wife of the protagonist detective. References to Asimov's I, Robot series are sprinkled throughout the story, including naming one of the "Calvin" character's robots Lenny.

Of course Doctorow puts his own spin on the scenario, posing questions about who owns the rights to what, and why the answer to that question is so important to society. He again shows an uncanny knowledge of twelve-year-old girls, though in this story we get to know Ada Trouble Icaza de Arana-Goldberg through her father's eyes. Single Dad Arturo is struggling with the aftermath of his wife's flight to Eurasia to build illicit robotech. She's left him to keep his chin up for Social Harmony approval so he can keep his job, and struggling to get Ada Trouble out of bed, in school, and still win her love.

A fun, detailed world awaits the reader in the beginning of the story, though as the overly-long tale drags on, the concreteness of the world drops away. Large portions of the action take place in a generic mall that, as I had no details about it, read like a typical, present-day American mall. Aside from setting issues, the father-daughter relationship so well set up in the opening lines of the story loses power when, in a moment of action-adventure, Doctorow pauses to remind us how important Ada Trouble is to her dad. We already knew that, and the reader can see the strings as Doctorow tries to tug our hearts.

But don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun reading this story. It's jam packed with cool ideas and futuristic car chases. The references to the I, Robot world will tickle any Asimov fan. And, by the way, if you haven't read the originals, check out the core stories of I, Robot and my favorite novel in the I, Robot universe featuring Elijah Baley, Caves of Steel.

Peter Jackson's King Kong and My Popcorn Recipe

Saturday was movie night at our house. We turned off the lights and got ready to enjoy Peter Jackson's 187-minute-long remake of King Kong. When the movie was in theaters, we stayed home and watched the original, which we had never seen. We were probably the only couple to go out and by the soundtrack to the 2005 remake, and not the DVD. But, as fans of the original movie and fans of what Jackson & Co. did with the Lord of the Rings, we were pretty pumped to see the movie.

The first hour of the movie impressed us a lot. The second hour I spent chatting with my mother-in-law and making popcorn (the conversation and snack were a heck of a lot better than the movie). The third hour redeemed itself with a satisfying and engaging ending.

Here are some things Jackson & Co. did right in the opening:
1. Ann Darow's character, transforming her from a starving young woman (original) to a starving young artist (2005 version) whose passion for theater makes her love story with writer Jack Driscoll plausible and sweet.
2. Buildup to Skull Island maintained tension through the first third of the movie. Our arrival there was not disappointing- it lived up to all the spooky hype. Kudos to Jackson for set building, casting and directing the Skull Island natives, and film techniques used to make arrival on Skull Island genuinely scary.

Following this are some truly lovely shots that establish the fantastical, prehistoric island where everything, from the insects to the T-Rex, are super sized and super beautiful. But within five minutes...

Heather's Popcorn Recipe
1/4 C organic popcorn kernels
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1 t fine sea salt

Directions: Air pop the corn, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and toss well. Serves two bored viewers.

So what went wrong? I'm hardly the first to notice that the drawn out creature feature battles dilute the tension of the story. At this point Jackson & Co. has made the viewer really care about Ann Darow. We want to know her fate! But we have to wade through way too many brontosaurus stampedes to get a glimpse at what's going on with her and Kong. Not only that, the creature battles are not well done. Cheesy battles that don't take simple physics into account may work in short clips, but not for the length of time we're exposed to them in the 2005 remake. Up until the moment we see the first dinosaur, the actions of the heroes are gripping, because they're battling and barely surviving, using their knowledge and skills to the best of their abilities in the face of tremendous threats. This truly scary feeling drops away in the middle of the movie, and we are left with continuous near-deaths that should have been real deaths. Coincidence and highly implausible escapes (that at my kindest evaluation were lucky, and at times were ridiculous) water down the element of danger and look just plain goofy.

Jackson's portrayal of the relationship between Ann and Kong saves the movie, so by the time I got to the end, I really did care what happened to Kong, and felt that he had made a connection with Ann. I think that was the heart of the original move, and despite a lot of vine-swinging T-Rexes, Jackson managed to deliver that heart in his remake.

3-Iron and the Nature of Reality

In a previous post I discussed how much I enjoyed the 2003 Korean film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring directed by Ki-duk Kim. It struck me so much, I had to try another. 3-Iron (Bin-jip) was no disappointment.

The beginning of this film is anything but fantastical. A young man rides from house to house on his motorbike, sticking advertisements for a restaurant to residents' doors. We quickly learn that Tae-Suk isn't working for a restaurant, but using these flyers as a way to tell whether or not people are home, or away on vacation. When he finds one of his flyers left on the front door for several days, he knows it's safe to pick the lock, and let himself inside. As far as Tae-Suk is concerned, he's not doing anything wrong. He's homeless, and all he wants is a bath, a meal, and a place to spend the night. He makes a point of doing something nice for the people while he's using their pad- watering the plants, doing the laundry, fixing a broken clock. Those who return usually don't even notice he was there, and he he never steals more than some leftovers from the fridge.

Tae-Suk's seemingly harmless existence incurs its first genuine act of crime when he discovers something extraordinarily valuable left abandoned in a wealthy man's home- the man's wife. There is no question this young wife has been badly abused by her husband. She's covered in bruises and blood, and when her husband telephones she screams. When Tae-Suk is surprised by the arrival of the abused woman's husband, he exacts revenge on the husband, beating him by driving golf balls into his gut until he crumples. Tae-Suk flees the house, taking the young wife with him. The young woman is initiated to Tae-Suk's way of life, but the karmic consequences of what Tae-Suk has done to her husband haunt their shyly blossoming love.

As these consequences grow darker, Tae-Suk learns the cost of his way of life and his love for the young woman. He combats his problems in a unique way that brings us into the realm of the speculative. An event quite near the end of the film could have two possible consequences. Not only does the denouement allow room for both of these outcomes to have occurred, it calls into question the reality of all the events that happened previously.

I loved this film. The details of each home or apartment Tae-Suk enters opens into the private world of fully-developed characters. The detail and touchable, almost smellable reality experienced by the viewer make the ambiguity of the ending hit home, causing a lurch as we question what is real, and what is not.

Harry Potter 7 to be Released on July 21st!

I was still bleary-eyed this morning when I was inundated by announcements about the seventh of seven books in the Harry Potter series. The final book's title had been released over the holidays in a puzzle on J.K. Rowling's website, leaving fans eager to know when they could get their hands on it. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is already available for pre-order on amazon.com. If you're anywhere near as excited as I am to get your hands on this book, pre-order and avoid long lines and sell-outs in June!

There will be lots of speculation today about how Rowling will end the series, but I hate spoilers. I'm all for the buzz, but I really don't want to know what happens until I get to the last page. I feel so strongly about this, that my husband lost his voice reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in an attempt to finish before we accidentally heard anything about the ending on the news.

What I'd like to talk about is how the Harry Potter series fits into spec fiction. Harry Potter is fantasy, one of the three major genres of SF. Rowling used some pretty conventional fantasy staples- fantastical creatures from Anglo-Saxon lore, magical spells in Latin, the idea of witches and wizards- and made something magical of them. She isn't the most original or inventive writer out there, her prose style isn't head and shoulders above the rest- but she sure does understand story. Rowling brought fun and adventure back to the mainstream perception of reading a book. That isn't the only key to her success. Her world building skill is absolutely head and shoulders above the rest. Think about it, wouldn't you love to take your next vacation at Hogwarts? The Harry Potter world is real to anyone who has read even one book in the series.

So, not only has Rowling captured a huge audience and been translated into at least 47 languages (I've even seen a copy in Latin), but she revived the spirit of storytelling. I have fond memories of sitting in rapt attention with my equally enthralled sister-in-law and mother-in-law while my husband read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) aloud. The Harry Potter books speak to the spirit of wonder in all of us, regardless of where or when we were born, or whether or not we're diehard SF fans. I think that's quite an accomplishment, and I can't wait for July 21st, so I can hear the rest of the story

Anda's Game

Anda's got a bit too much podge, she hates PE, and she loves sweeties and her online RPG. There's nothing particularly futuristic about this British teen, the protagonist of the third tale in Cory Doctorow's Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, until her passion for her favorite game gets her into more than one kind of trouble.

"Anda's Game" was a lot of fun to read. Doctorow is to be praised for the use of such phrases as "sensible boobs" and characters like "Liza the Organiza." Anda's voice is realistic- sweet, but sometimes greedy, depressed, bored. Anda's round character showcases Doctorow's ability to actually get inside a twelve-year-old girl's head. The plot is engaging, and leads logically down a path that brings Anda and the reader to a genuine dilemma.

In his forward to the story, Doctorow goes into great detail about what inspired him to write "Anda's Game." Thumbing his nose at the misnomer that titles can be copyrighted inspired the title. The practice of gold farming gave him the idea for the plot. What Doctorow fails to mention is where he got the idea that female role-playing gamers were better than males. This assumption is the only element of the story that I didn't find plausible.

Doctorow cites some believable reasons why girls aren't as avid gamers as their male counterparts, including avatars that make them "perv-magnets," taking crap from boys, and gamespace that "smells like a boy's armpit." Where he loses is me is the premise that female gamers are better than male gamers. Just as good, could be. But better?

Doctorow's feminist RPG queen, Liza the Organiza, claims that girls are "faster, stronger, and better than boys." Let's just say this is Liza's opinion, not Doctorow's. But later, when Liza says that girls' cooperative spirit makes them better fighters than boys, I really got the feeling Doctorow shared her opinion. Indeed, important events of the story were tied to the way the girls in game cooperated.

I've observed a lot male gamers playing online MUDs, RPGs and XBOX Live Arcade games. Say what you will about these fella's armpits- the spirit of cooperation is strong with them. Listen in to the audio chat channels during play. You'll hear guys of all ages from all over the USA (and in some cases the world), guys who have never even met each other, spontaneously working together to achieve a team goal. You'll hear them sharing the spoils of war, covering each other's backs, and teaching inexperienced players the ropes. It's beautiful, in a kind of smelly guy way.

I don't think girls are going to edge out male gamers based on spirit of cooperation.

The Father of Science Fiction?

This morning I came across a reference to the origins of science fiction in an unexpected context. I was reading The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow. In a chapter illuminating the forward-thinking progress made by France at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the authors cited Jules Verne as the father of science fiction. I always question these kind of statements, which can be tricky to prove. The authors mentioned that Verne was a predecessor to the British H.G. Wells. A quick check of their bibliographies backed up this statement: Verne published such titles as Journey to the Center of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon in 1864-1865. Wells' first publication was in 1888, his Time Machine: An Invention dates from 1895. My research on Wikipedia drew my attention to the statement: "Verne, along with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the 'Father of Science Fiction'."
Well, the first thing I did was check out this Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback wasn't even born until until 1864. A native of Luxembourg (and no doubt a Francophone), Gernsback moved to the U.S. in 1905. Modern SF fans most likely remember him for his first name, given to the prestigous Hugo Award. He gets the appellation "Father of Science Fiction" and is often credited for creating the genre, because he founded and promoted Amazing Stories, the first commercial magazine dedicated to science fiction.
Meaning no disrespect to the worthy trinity of our science fiction fathers, I was more interested to discover who first started writing science fiction than in who established the genre niche in popular literature. Further research led me to The History of Science Fiction: A Chronological Survey by Agatha Taormina. Taormina divides the origin of science fiction into stages: prehistory, pioneers, Wells and Bouroughs, early modern science fiction, the Golden Age, postwar era, and the modern age. Prehistory yielded some interesting results stretching back to elements of the fantastic in classical literature. But I was interested in the pioneer age, the first authors to pen tales that meet our modern genre requirements for science fiction. The result? The father of science fiction, in the sense of the first person to write a genuine science fiction novel, wasn't the father of science fiction, but the mother: Mary Shelly. Her Frankenstein : A Modern Prometheus, was first published in 1818. The wikipedia entry for this book notes that "many distinguished authors...consider this the very first science fiction novel."
If you're only familiar with Frankenstein as a monster movie icon, you're in for a treat when you discover the 1818 novel at the origin of this classic tale. Frankenstein is fantastic fodder for a future blog post. For now I'll leave you with highlights of Agatha Taormina's list of the earliest pioneers of science fiction. These authors are among my favorites.

• 1818 Mary Shelly (British) Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus
• 1836 Edgar Allen Poe (American) The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym
• 1840's Nathaniel Hawthorne (American) "The Birthmark" (1843) and "Rappaccini's Daughter" (1844)
• 1860/70's Jules Verne (French) Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Friggin' Writers' Panel

This evening from 7-9 ET I'll be one of two guest authors discussing science fiction in the first of Friggin' Write's series of teleconference writers' panel meetups. I'll be joined by award-winning short-story writer and novelist, Karen Heuler.

To learn more about tonight's discussion and to learn about upcoming telephonic discussion panels and NYC writer events, check out the Friggin' Write website.

Transformations of King Arthur Through Time

This week I finished Joseph Campbell's Transformations of Myth Through Time. Campbell takes on the daunting task of explaining the Western individual's cultural and spiritual heritage, beginning with the dawn of human consciousness, and discussing the major Eastern and Western civilizations whose stories make up our heritage. He also attempts to answer the question "How do I connect with the magic of the universe?" for those who come from Judeo-Christian traditions, and provides an explanation of Oriental philosophy and spirituality to the Westerner, including how these traditions influenced our own.

The final three chapters are a special treat for fantasy fans like me. Campbell delves deep into the tradition of the troubadours, and unearths the dawn of such legends as King Arthur, The Search for the Holy Grail, and Tristan and Isolde.

I had read several accounts of historical leaders named Arthur who may or may not have been the source of the Arthur stories. Campbell suggests Arthur was "originally a Celtic god, and the place where we find him revered is in the Pyrenees." Campbell explains that the name Arthur is related to several ancient deities, including Artus (Roman) and Artemis (Greek). In all these cases, the deity is identified with the bear. Joseph Campbell fans will know that the bear is the "oldest worshiped deity in the world...going back to Neanderthal times." There's a really cool photograph accompanying this text, a tombstone from first century A.D. in St. Pé, France. The inscription reads, "Lexiia, the daughter of Odan, has gained merit through her vows to Artehe." Campbell finds it easy to make the leap from "Artehe" to "Arthur" (you will, too, if you speak both words out loud), and uses this monument as evidence that Arthur was still a deity in Roman times.

Campbell does an excellent job of connecting tales from distant lands and distant times to the swarm of stories we all have swimming deep inside our brains. His tone is conversational, and laced with humor, the weight of a lifetime of mythological study, and love for these stories.

Overclocked Announced

Cory Doctorow announced the publication of his new collection of short stories on the famous Boing Boing, the "directory of wonderful things." You can see for yourself how wonderful- or not- the collection is either by buying the book, or by reading it for free under a Creative Commons license which Doctorow summarizes as "Take 'em, send them around, convert them to new formats, make new and cool things out of them -- but don't charge money for them without talking to me."

In typical Doctorow fashion, the stories are available for free in practically every digital format known to man. So far I've read the first Dickensian science fiction tale, "Printcrime," in pdf on my mac. Next up, "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" in Mobipocket on my handheld. I'll have reviews of the stories over the coming weeks. To learn more about Doctorow's policy of giving his work away for free, check out my previous post on Doctorow.

Full Metal Panic!

That giant robot you saw earlier this week on the cover of Full Metal Panic - Mission 01 is actually called an Arm Slave, a deadly mechanical exoskeleton operated by a human soldier on the battlefield. War tactics and soldierly bravery make up the shōnen aspect of the series, which is supposed to appeal to guys. One of these soldiers, Sosuke Sagara, is taken out of his Arm Slave and charged to go undercover as a high school student in order to guard Kaname Chidori. The relationship that develops between these two provides fodder for the girl-pleasing shōjo audience.

So, why is a battle-hardened soldier guarding a Japanese high school student? That's where the science fiction comes in. Though Kaname doesn't know it, she's a Whispered, a young woman who can hear distant voices that speak of technology beyond anything previously dreamed by humans. Kaname isn't the only Whispered- we also meet Captain Tessa, a frail American teenager in charge of a futuristic submarine she designed and built with the help of the whispering voices. What I like about Full Metal Panic! is that advances in technology come with very realistic consequences. Anarchists and terrorists are drooling to get their hands on one of these young Whispereds so they can put them to work designing weapons. They are successful in getting their hands on some Black Technology, which allows them to soup up an Arm Slave with the Lambda Driver. I won't tell you what this nightmare weapon does- you'll have a lot of fun finding out. But I will say that the only way Sosuke can defend Kaname against the Lambda Driver it is to learn to use it, himself.

Full Metal Panic! digs into the psychology of the soldier, explores sense of duty in military organizations, gives an interesting twist on the child prodigy, and even offers insight into Japanese culture. But let's not forget that it's also got Sosuke booby trapping school lunches and blowing up shoe lockers. And, most important of all, it's got Kaname hitting hopeless Sosuke over the head with her fan every time he makes a civilian blunder- and falling deeper in love with every swat.

What is the Difference between Manga and Anime?

Before I began my foray into the world of manga, I was confused on this point, but it's really pretty simple. Manga are Japanese comic books in print. Anime is manga in motion, cartoon series on video media.

Fantasy and science fiction series are well-represented in manga and anime series, but mainstream romantic comedies and other genres are also quite popular. More important than genre distinction is the intended target audience of the series. There are many kinds of target audiences, but the main divisions are shōjo (intended for a female audience) and shōnen (intended for a male audience). Now, it isn't as though only boys can only read shōnen and girls abhor everything but shōjo. In fact, my favorite series is a blend of shōjo and shōnen combined with a good dose of science fiction. This week I'll be doing a review of the series, Full Metal Panic, in which I'll point out which elements appeal to spec fiction fans, which elements appeal to boys, which elements appeal to girls, and why this unique combination makes a fun series for everyone.

For now I'll leave you with the links to Full Metal Panic! Volume 1 (this is manga) and Full Metal Panic - Mission 01 (this is anime). Note the meeting of shōjo and shōnen on the cover of the manga, and the giant robot on the DVD of the anime.

Stone and the Librarian

What a treat! One of my favorite writers, William Browning Spencer, has a short story in the February issue of F&SF! Spencer presents us with a protagonist, Stone, who hates, despises, and loathes literature. At the same time, his ability to connect deeply with the written word has been noticed by the Librarian, who holds Stone prisoner and forces him to read, and read, and then read some more. For Stone, life in Knowledge Base #29 makes him feel as though "time turned the color of a rain-laden sky." Forced forays into Faulkner give Stone the impression he's trying to "puzzle out the thought process of a giant squid mulling things over at the bottom of the night-black sea." Yet Stone wakes in the middle of the night, having understood the precise essence of what Faulkner was trying to say. He runs through his prison, shouting the message at the top of his lungs- but all anyone can hear is a madman shouting gibberish.

As in my other Spencer favorites, Zod Wallop and Resume With Monsters, the beauty of "Stone and the Librarian" comes from those moments when the reader sinks with the protagonist into a whirlpool of uncertainty about what is real, and what represents the fevered workings of a mad, mad brain. At a certain point the reader feels a jolt, a moment of being unsure whether he's still got all his marbles. For me the moment came on p. 56. Where is the fall for you?

As you can tell from the large amount of quoting in today's post, the prose is also fantastic in this story. Spec fiction fans will enjoy the references to Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Great fun for literature buffs, too!

The Darkness Between

Today I read a really fun novelette by Jeremy Minton. "The Darkness Between" uses a classic science fiction scenario. Two technologically advanced civilizations wipe themselves out with battle lust, and the story takes place ages into the aftermath, focusing on a primitive society coming of age. I like the fact that the coming of age of the primitive society is paired with the coming of age of the young protagonist.

But we've all seen this scenario many times before. Why read "The Darkness Between?" For all that fun stuff I was talking about: an untrustworthy magician; impossible battles with knuckledusters in close, dark tunnels, lit only by the glow of the monsters' bodies; mining for spiritual drugs; rockfruit; a geography that includes locations like the Drop and the Lightless Lake. In short, the world building here is fantastic.

You can find "The Darkness Between" in the January 2007 issue of F&SF .

Learning to Shudder

What do Jim Henson's the Storyteller and the Japanese anime series Full Metal Panic Fumoffu have in common? Well, not much- except that both of them have an episode based on my favorite Grimm's fairy tale: "The Story of the Youth who went forth to learn what Fear was." I first encountered this tale in Bergamo, Italy, where I picked up a book of local fairy tales and legends. I've since encountered a similar version in Grimm's.

It's not surprising that Jim Henson's the Storyteller,which pulls directly from German folk tales, used this tale which is, after all, the fourth of two hundred ten tales in The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales. Henson tells the story of a tailor's son who is a little too simple, a little too dumb, to have ever been afraid. At the urging of his father, the young man leaves family, home, and his true love behind and goes on an adventure to seek out his first fright- to learn, as it were, how to shudder. The journey leads our hero on a number of adventures that are supposed to frighten him, but do not. He finally ends up in a haunted house, where a ghoul comes tumbling down the chimney (in the Italian version, this ghoul falls down the chimney in many pieces, in Henson's version, he is separated in just two pieces, his legs scampering away from his upper half). The ghoul challenges the young hero to a game of nine pins, for which the prize is winning the hero's legs. The young man wins the game, survives the night, and finds great riches in the haunted house. He goes home a wealthy man, but he still hasn't learned to shudder. It's not until he returns home to tell his father his fortune that he learns his true love has fallen deathly ill. Summoned to her side, the young man is certain his true love will die, and fear of losing her makes him shiver in terror for the very first time.

Compare this traditional tale to the romantic comedy/sf war (yes, you read that correctly) manga and anime series from Japan, Full Metal Panic. In the Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu portion of the series, we have spunky Japanese high school girl, Kaname, showing the foreign-born soldier, Sosuke, the ropes of teenage life in Japan. Sosuke has learned that high school can be more challenging than the battlefield, where he spent most of his childhood and young adult life. In Episode 6, "The Patient of Darkness," Kaname is telling ghost stories to her friends. The only one she can't scare with her stories is the battle-hardened Sosuke. Kaname takes him to an abandoned hospital that the locals believe is haunted. Right away the duo sees an elderly patient who died at the hospital staring at them through a broken window. Inside, a defunct telephone line rings. The caller is trying to reach the hospital- but he's already dead. Bloodied children from the pediatric ward begin to chase them down the hallway with cleavers. Through all these increasingly scary situations, Kaname is jumping out of her skin, but Sosuke remains unmoved, pointing out at each juncture that old ladies and even small children with weapons are no match for his soldierly skills. The pair are about to discover the true nature of the hospital hauntings, when some old floor boards give way and Kaname falls through to the hospital's basement. The next scene shows her in a heap of rubble, unconscious. There is blood everywhere. Enter Sosuke, sweating and shaking, stuttering- in other words, he's terrified. Like the fairy tale hero, our level-headed soldier has learned what fear is.

January 2007 F&SF

The last two stories of the first 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction are enough to get readers excited for a great year of fiction. The final tales are by Neil Gaiman and Robert Reed. Gaiman takes us on adventure with two young men both at the tender age of fifteen. Reed's leading men are both the same age, too: this time fifty-three years young.

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" is both the title of Gaiman's story and a serious problem for protagonist, Enn. He watches with envy as his buddy Vic glides uninvited into a house full of beautiful girls, plucks the prettiest from the lot, and makes her his date. The only advice lady-killer Vic can give Enn on girls is to talk to them, then listen to what they say. Enn takes this advice to heart- and the girls start jabbering away, making even less sense than girls usually do. This story was taken from Gaiman's most recent book, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, though all the references to stars throughout the story may bring to mind another Niel Gaiman title, Stardust, which editor Gordon Van Gelder reminds us is coming out in film this March.

"X-Country" by Robert Reed describes the Gatsby-esque character, Kip Logan. Kip's origins are uncertain, his aptitudes moderate, he's good looking, and liked by both men and women. His only outstanding achievement was constantly beating protagonist Don at all the local running events. Then one day Kip left town, traveled the world, and came back rich enough to buy a mansion and fancy sports car with cash. The details of where he went and how he made his money are, like most things in Kip's past, very sketchy. Now fifty-three years old, both Don and Kip are back competing in races- Kip winning, as per usual. Then two very interesting things happen. Don suffers a hip injury that threatens to end his running career and his active lifestyle for good. Kip decides to sponsor his own X-country race- not cross-country- Kip is very adamant about that. Just what this X-country race might be is a mystery to Don and the entire town, but the prizes Kip is offering make it worth while to run.

Missing Chapters and Winter's Nights

My husband and I have been reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman aloud together. It is a decidedly wintry book, so we read the first half last winter, then put it aside in the spring and have just picked it back up. We were happily reading about arctic temperatures and Alethia meters when we noticed a printing error in the book: chapters 15 and 16 had been printed twice, chapters 17 and 18 were missing. This left us with a pretty serious problem: what happens next?

My first thought when we discovered the error was another half-finished book I left behind somewhere in Italy. Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore by Italo Calvino (English translation: If on a winter's night a traveler) is a novel all about the joy of reading. The bookworm protagonist settles in all comfy on the sofa for a good read, dives into an intriguing tale, but is jarred out of the authorial spell part way through when he realizes a large portion of the book is missing. He sets out on a quest that leads him to bookstores, libraries, publishers' offices, and obscure university departments, in search of the rest of the manuscript. Along the way he encounters nine more incomplete manuscripts (each more captivating than the next, and yes, we get to read them all) international intrigue, and romance with a mysterious girl. The Calvino book is the kind of novel meant to savor: by which I mean turning the pages in wild feverishness then, like the protagonist, stepping back for awhile to ponder the significance of what it is you've read. It's the sort of book that will stay in your head years after you should have forgotten it.

Real life, alas, is not so fun and exciting as fiction.

In my own attempt to find the rest of The Golden Compass, I contacted the publisher. Random House customer service could not send me an electronic copy of the missing chapters (Random House, Inc./Yearling owns the rights to both my defective book and the eBook version) nor would they replace the book. They advised me to contact the seller. A phone call to Barnes and Noble customer service ended in a stubborn adherence to their 30 day exchange policy. Of course I knew about their policy before I called, but I mistakenly believed they had an interest in readers, that a bookseller would understand that readers don't want to thumb through the book to check for printing errors before they read it. Turns out B&N doesn't understand the reader, but they are excellent at moving product- defective or otherwise. Even when I said I'd be happy with an electronic copy of the missing chapters, they were unable to help me. So at this point I was stuck with a grave conundrum for the avid reader: I couldn't find out what happened next. My solution? Three bucks and change at fictionwise.com. Less romantic than Calvino's Winter's Night, but at least now I can learn Lyra's fate!

Ubik

"Ubik speeds relief to head and stomach. Remember:...Avoid prolonged use."
"Ubik plastic wrap- actually four layers in one. Keeps freshness in, air and moisture out."
"Instant Ubik has all the fresh flavor of just-brewed drip coffee...Safe when taken as directed."
"Ubik is the nation's number-one choice in beer. Made only in Cleveland."
"Ubik provides uninterrupted sleep...Do not exceed recommended dosage."
-Philip K. Dick, Ubik

Just what is this ubiquitous Ubik? If Joe Chip weren't fighting a losing battle against time, he might have a moment to figure it out. But he really, really doesn't.

Joe is the kind of guy who doesn't have so much as a nickel to pay his refrigerator so he can drink a glass of milk. His trouble with small change only gets worse when he finds the vending machines won't take the quarter in his pocket, and only antique coin collectors accept his currency. Cups of hard-won coffee grow rancid in his hands. Bummed cigarettes decompose and crumble on his lips. Just when Joe doesn't think life can get any cruddier, a friend dies, found dried up like a mummy. She's one of twelve people exposed to a bizarre bomb blast. Joe is among the twelve. Yep, things just got worse: the world around Joe and the ten survivors is slipping back in time. Yesterday it was 1992, today the papers are asking if the U.S. will join the war in Europe. Joe Chip would like to know what the hell is going on, preferably before he dies.

Much like its namesake, Ubik offers something for everyone. It's that satisfying mystery novel that allows you to figure out whodunnit just one step ahead of the protagonist. It has smart-mouthed appliances, telepaths, and a sexy stranger who takes off all her clothes. Dick refers to the Bardo Thodo (often called the Tibetan Book of the Dead) and makes fun of funeral directors. The reader enjoys a trip to the moon and later to my home state of Iowa in 1939. Readers may enjoy laughing at what pre-war Iowans thought of houses of prostitution, or the way Dick envisions futuristic tape recorders. Slight chaffing may occur as certain plot devices repeat in the last third of the novel, but the reader, like Joe Chip, will probably be too distracted by Chip's eminent death to be annoyed. If not, you can always apply a little Ubik to the pages. It will make everything shiny and new.

Ubik, a highly recommended read. Safe when imagination is used as directed.

Virtual Limb

As an SF writer I find the idea of an amputee's phantom limb fascinating fodder for the imagination. As a human being I feel bad for the amputees! What can be done to cure intense discomfort in an area of your body that does not exist anymore?.

Graphics technology may have found an answer. This CRAVE article describes how a virtual reality system using video game graphics helped a woman experience the use of her fingers again and find relief from the her painfully clenched missing hand. Participants in the program get nifty virtual reality goggles and enter into an absorbing virtual reality where they can wiggle non-existant fingers and run with legs that have magically come back to them.

Variable Star

"I wanted to read a new Heinlein novel so badly that I didn't care if I had to finish it myself."
-Spider Robinson

I grabbed this quote from a Slashdot article on the Heinlein manuscript Robinson completed. Variable Star was released on September 19th, 2006 by TOR. I read the first chapter before the release but haven't yet read the book. Trying to avoid spoilers, I've merely glanced at the reviews. My impression that this is classic, yummy Heinlein has been confirmed by reviewers on Slashdot and Amazon, but there are some disgruntled readers who complain that the history timeline includes modern events that Heinlein would have never known to include.