Asimov's Science Fiction 10/01/10 Read online

  “Yes,” Karen said lightly, indicating my papers strewn all around. “It’s Bob.” But she knew—and didn’t want to say—that what the housekeeper was sensing was the presence of Mrs. Remmer.

  As I say, I’m not a person who believes in ghosts. But I do use Occam’s Razor as an aid to thinking, and Occam’s Razor tells me that all the weird stuff that happens around here can best be explained as the work of some malign invisible spirit, and so be it. A couple of years ago, I told this story to a friend of mine, the anthropologist and artist Winfield Coleman. He is an expert on shamanism, and offered to perform a rite of exorcism for us. I turned him down. I don’t believe in ghosts, I said; and in any case, I didn’t want to discover that by ejecting Mrs. Remmer I had simply made room here for some even more malevolent apparition.

  Copyright © 2010 Robert Silverberg

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  On the Net: FACE THE TWEETS

  James Patrick Kelly

  ancient history.

  In 1996, I applied for a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts to attend a class for artists who wanted to create their own websites. Being a science fiction writer, I thought it wise to explore what looked to be the most important communications innovation since print. Back then some skeptics said that the World Wide Web was just a fad, like CB Radio . They conceded the uses of email, but why would a writer need a website? What would a writer put up on it? Pictures of his cats?

  The class gave me just a basic understanding of HTML and my first handcrafted website was a mess. Later I started using a WYSIWYG editor and the thing acquired some personality. I did find stuff to put on my site, my bibliography and resume, news when I made it, some essays on writing and the writing life and later bunches of my stories.

  Skip ahead a few years to the rise of the blogs. Blogger , one of the very first blog-publishing tools, launched in late 1999, and was acquired by Google in 2002. The skeptics once again scoffed. Why would any sane person want to post their virtual diaries online? Who would take the time? And what would bloggers write about? Their cats?

  I have to admit that even today I drift bloglessly through the blogosphere. But I breathe the blogosphere as deeply as anyone and it didn’t surprise me at all that the skeptics were once again proved wrong. For example, since 2002, Technorati has indexed 133,000,000 blogs, according to its State of the Blogosphere 2009 . It reports that more than three quarters of all internet users read blogs.

  Many of my genre mates were early adopters , despite the skeptics. Long-time readers of this column will recall that back in 2005, I offered up my personal list of the top 40 science fiction writers’ blogs . Most of those bloggers are still busy typing. For a more objective list, nip over to 42blips , where you can see the top two hundred science fiction and fantasy blogs. 42blips ranks using the metric of inbound links from other blogs. Here are the top five: io9 , Sci Fi Wire , SF Signal , SFWA Blog , and Film » Sci-Fifi . (This last was new to me—lively site!)

  Last fall I attended a workshop about online branding for artists. The one thing that took me by surprise was when the presenter made the point that a blog was probably more important than a website for the individual artist. I know, I know a blog is a website. But people return again and again to a blog that is updated regularly; visiting a static website is a sometime thing. Moreover I have heard science fiction editors instruct their authors, new and old, that it’s really important to start a blog, like yesterday.

  stats.

  But are they right? Even as the wisdom of 2010 seems to have turned in favor of blogs, the statistics are beginning to point elsewhere. Certainly blogging is on the decline among teens and young adults, according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project .

  “In 2006, 28 percent of teens ages 12-17 and young adults ages 18-29 were bloggers, but by 2009 the numbers had dropped to 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults. During the same period, the percentage of online adults over thirty who were bloggers rose from 7 percent blogging in 2006 to 11 percent in 2009. Much of the drop in blogging among younger internet users may be attributable to changes in social network use by teens and young adults. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of online teens and an equal number (72 percent) of young adults use social network sites. By contrast, older adults have not kept pace; some 40 percent of adults 30 and older use the social sites in the fall of 2009.”

  The Big Three of social networking, as I type this, are Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn . And again there are skeptics ready and willing to declare that social networking is nothing but a worthless time sink. Consider this, however: In March, according to CNN , “Facebook topped Google to become the most visited U.S. Web site last week, indicating a shift in how Americans are searching for content.” The rise of Facebook has accompanied a corresponding decline for its progenitor, MySpace . Back in December 2008, Facebook rising passed MySpace falling; the trends in either direction continue apace. Many now consign MySpace to the trash heap of internet history. Meanwhile in 2009, Twitter grew at a croggling 1,382 percent, according to Neilsen Online . However, data from 2010 thus far show a slight decrease in the number of unique visitors to Twitter, indicating that its initial surge of popularity has ebbed. Whether it will regain momentum remains to be seen. And then there is LinkedIn, which has about the same number of users as Twitter. It’s a great network to join if you’re in business, but not necessarily the place to discuss the latest issue of Asimov’s.

  face the tweets.

  Like many neophytes at social networking, I had a Facebook page long before I knew what to do with it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the concept of Friends—the coin of exchange on Facebook. I knew who my real life friends were, but what was my relationship to my Facebook friends, many of whom I had never met and probably never would meet? How did I decide which friend requests to honor and which to ignore? And if strangers could be Friends, what was appropriate to post on my Facebook page for them to read? What would be meaningful? It wasn’t until I decided to treat my Facebook page as the blog I never had that things began to come clear. I would show my writerly self only to my Friends and save personal stuff for email to family and friends—small “f.” And as for accepting Friend solicitations, check out the sensible policy outlined by social media blogger Shel Israel .

  Although they share many attributes, there are two notable differences between Twitter and Facebook. The first is the famous and ironclad 140 character limit to each post, called a tweet. Some will string several tweets together to express more complex thoughts, but by and large the 140 character limit rules. The second is that Twitter is more democratic than Facebook. Instead of granting permission for people to friend you, in Twitter you have followers. Anyone can follow you, assuming they can find you. If you want to get to know your fave SF pro better, start by consulting the list of tweeting writers at Greententacles.com .

  It used to be the case that the third major difference between Facebook and Twitter was that tweets happened in real time. This meant that Twitter was always up to date and that it was easy to have Twitter dialogues. The downside of the “now web” is that Twitter is a stream, and once a tweet floats by, it can be hard to retrieve. In 2008, Facebook tried to acquire Twitter, but when that fa
iled it began to make itself more Twitter-like. Posts from your friends now stream by on the “News Feed” on your Facebook landing page.

  It’s easier, in my opinion, to understand what Facebook is for than it is to understand the power of Twitter. If you must compose a blog post, you need only consider a Facebook post, whereas you more or less blurt a tweet. Yes, they are spontaneous and often as not ungrammatical, and those who decry the corruption of language to which tweets lend themselves have a point. But it strikes me that the 140 character limit imposes a welcome succinctness on our windy culture.

  I have to admit that I was a Twitter skeptic until about a year ago, and so have lagged behind in my exploration of the Twitterverse. So I put the question Why tweet? to my 138 followers. Three of my writer friends responded almost immediately:

  C.C. Finlay , “Why tweet? Because social networking takes up so much of my time now I no longer have any time to blog. @ccfinlay”

  Greg van Eekhout , “Because I can hang out with my friends, keep up with news, and do professional networking in one window (I use Seesmic, btw). @gregvan eekhout”

  Steven Gould , “My friends are all over the country (and world.) Getting micro-slice glimpses into their lives helps me keep in touch and while I’ll talk about my work/career as stuff happens, I hate it when people flog their work endlessly on twitter. @ StevenGould” (It took Steve two tweets to say all of this.)

  Reviewer and webmaster extraordinaire Mark Watson wrote, “ Twitter complements and enhances blogging + websites, replaces rss + some forums, has drawbacks, may be a fad, but elegant simple. @BestSF”

  A science fiction and fantasy fan, Molly Kalafut, added, “Why Twitter? Watching authors talk to each other is fascinating. Plus, it’s my only chance to ever be quoted in Asimov’s! @mollie31416” Happy to oblige, Molly!

  Greg mentioned Seesmic , one of many Twitter clients that allow you to manage multiple social media accounts. While you can post to both Facebook and Twitter from Seesmic, there are other clients, for instance, Tweetdeck , which allow you to update Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn from the same window. It occurs to me that the ultimate fate of all these social media services may be merger and/or acquisition. Should that happen your SM (unfortunate acronym, that) identity will be as commonplace as your email address.

  exit

  While the various iterations of social networking may come and go, there is no question in my mind that it will play a central role in the expansion of the internet into our lives. As it changes the way we communicate, it will also change the way we think and feel. What, you don’t believe me? Scoff all you want, skeptics. Feel free to send your comments to my Twitter account, @jaspkelly. And don’t forget the 140 character limit.

  Oh, and by the way, if anyone is really interested, I’d be happy to email you pictures of Thelma and Louise, my remarkable and talented cats.

  Copyright © 2010 James Patrick Kelly

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  NEXT ISSUE

  DECEMBER ISSUE

  With our December issue we return to our single-issue size, but somehow, we manage to cram nine dynamic stories into it. Our cover story is a novelette by Hugo-, Nebula-, and multiple Readers’ Award-winning writer James Patrick Kelly. “Plus or Minus” puts the author’s fascinating character, Mariska Volchkova—the genectially altered teenager who can hibernate on deep-space voyages—and puts her and other young people into a truly perious situation. The beautiful cover is by John Picacio. Later in the issue, veteran author Tom Purdom’s novelette plunges us into a battle of “Warfriends” that involves two sentient alien races and their human military advisor.

  ALSO IN DECEMBER

  Our terrific array of short stories includes Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author Michael Swanwick’s dramatic tale of a motorcycle journey across “Libertarian Russia.” New author Gregory Norman Bossert presents us with a rather unusual viewpoint character in “Freia in the Sunlight” while Hugo-Award-winning author Robert Reed challenges his characters to achieve “Excellence.” Children and offspring are the focus in Sara Genge’s poignant tale about the people who must atone for the “Sins of the Father”; Nebula- and Philip K. Dick-Award winner Carol Emshwiller’s gentle and surprising story of “Uncle E”; and brand new author Ian Werkheiser’s painful debut tale of love and loss and musical “Variations.” In a future where non-augmented athletes have reached the limits of perfection, Ian Creasey reveals what may be “The Prize Beyond Gold.”

  OUR EXCITING FEATURES

  Robert Silverberg offers us some absorbing “Reflections” on “Rereading Kornbluth”; Peter Heck contributes “On Books”; plus we’ll have a set of poetry you’re sure to enjoy. Look for our December issue on sale at newsstands on October 5, 2010. Or you can subscribe to Asimov’s—in paper format or in downloadable varieties—by visiting us online at www.asimovs.com. We’re also available on Amazon.com’s Kindle!

  COMING SOON

  New stories by Elizabeth Bear, Bill Pronzini & Barry N. Malzberg, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Jack Skillingstead, Neal Barrett, jr., David Ira Cleary, John Kessel, Sara Genge, Carol Emshwiller, Ian Creasey, Chris Beckett, Steve Rasnic Tem, Ian McHugh, Nick Mamatas, Alan DeNiro, Aliette de Bodard, Jeff Carlson, and many others!

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  ON BOOKS: TIME, SPACE, AND CULTURE

  Norman Spinrad

  THE WINDUP GIRL

  by Paolo Bacigalupi

  Night Shade, $24.95

  ISBN: 978-1597801577

  GARDENS OF THE SUN

  by Paul McAuley

  Pyr, $16.00

  ISBN: 978-1616141967

  GALILEO’S DREAM

  by Kim Stanley Robinson

  Spectra, $26.00

  ISBN: 978-0553806595

  BABYLON BABIES

  by Maurice G. Dantec

  Del Rey, $6.99

  ISBN: 978-0345505972

  In my most recent column here, “Third World Worlds,” I considered science fiction written by First World writers set in Third World milieus: the relative paucity of same, the difficulties involved in writing it, and particularly in conveying at least the illusion to the reader that it is “authentic,” that it could have been written by someone whose consciousness was formed by and within the culture in question, rather than from an outsider viewpoint.

  I wrote that essay before I read Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, set in a future Thailand; or Paul McAuley’s sequel to The Quiet War (considered therein), Gardens of the Sun, set mostly in the outer solar system but also in a future Brazil and North America; or Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson, also partly set in a future outer solar system but as least equally in the Renaissance Italy of the title and viewpoint character, Galileo Galilei himself.

  I had some time ago read Maurice G. Dantec’s Babylon Babies, set mostly in future Montreal and post-Soviet Central Asia. Somehow I found myself pondering these four novels together, wondering why I felt there was something in common among them, and why that elusive something seemed an expansion of the literary and cultural questions explored in “Third World Worlds,” namely that in literary terms, and particularly in science fictional terms, a truly alien culture in the sense of not being the culture of the writer or the reader could just as well be set in the near future on Earth, somewhere in outer space in the further future, or yes, even in the well-recorded past.

  And for would-be writers, and possible readers, of same, there could be literary denominators common to all three.

  Bacigalupi is an American writing a novel set in future Thailand. Robinson is an American writing a novel half-set in historical Renaissance Italy, and all of it from the viewpoint of a Galileo both accurately historical and speculative. McAuley is a Brit writing a
novel set dominantly in the inhabited outer moons of a future solar system, but involved in a war for cultural survival against a future Brazilian autocracy. Dantec is a Frenchman living in Montreal who may or may not have been on the ground during the recent Balkan wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia writing a novel set in a relatively near future Montreal and “Wild East” Central Asia.

  McAuley has lived in the United States, though for a fellow Anglophone that is not such an alien culture as Switzerland and Nepal, where Robinson has lived and as well has spent considerable time in other non-Anglophone parts of Europe, if not in its historic past. Dantec is now living in a bilingual country and on a continent not of his birth and seems to have spent time during his younger years at least as far east as Moscow. Bacigalupi, I have been given to understand, has lived in Thailand. And, as a personal note, because such disclaimers seem to be journalistic de riguer these days, I have lived in France for fifteen years and traveled fairly widely in Eastern Europe.

  What am I getting at?

  Well, with the semi-exception of Paul McAuley, I and the authors of the other three novels in question here have all lived in cultures not of our origin long enough to be partially imbedded in both of them, and therefore not entirely in either. And this would seem to create, or at least encourage, a kind of generalized cultural and literary binocular vision.

  Even when the fiction in question is not set in either culture. Even when it is set in a past or a future somewhere and/or somewhen that the writer could not possibly have visited.

  I myself can testify that living in France had a positive effect on the portions of my novel Russian Spring set in a Soviet Union I had never set foot in until I had written two drafts. And somehow also on Mexica, a straight historical set in a Mexico I had sojourned in for a few months, but of course never in the sixteenth century Aztec empire in which it is set.

  Dantec is someone I sort of know well. But Maurice is a guy rather close-mouthed and/or ambiguous about where he had been or what he had done in his earlier life. In any case, it’s doubtful he could have spent time in the Central Asian “stans,” which during that era were parts of the Soviet Union and nearly impossible to get into from the West.