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IMG_1132 by philipp michel reichold Via Flickr: #florida blue sky red leaves 

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Draiken Dies by Adam Troy Castro

(Analog, October, 2020)

(July 17, 2025)

The story is set on a backwater post-industrial-hell-world in an even more backwater post-industrial-hell-world town near where John’s enemies have located themselves. The town is drab and boring. As are the residents, the buildings, the environs. Even the food is drab and boring, some sort of boiled seaweed served in as drab and boring a manner as possible. In such a setting, anyone as not drab and not boring as Delia was bound to attract attention. In the fullness of time, John's enemies come to collect Delia, but Delia has other ideas, and that's when the story becomes interesting. Truth be known, the main reason Delia fights her assailants the way she does is to alleviate the drab boredom. Once they have her, you know interrogation will surely follow. Delia's interrogation scene is a delight to read, and the story ending poignant, though I must say I feel bad about John.

During her interrogation, Delia speculates that his enemies did break John and that this is the reason he came after them, after decades of hiding, and why he did not or will not now allow himself to leave the past in the past and seek to live a normal life full of love and joy and happiness instead of living a life full of calculating, scheming, risk-taking vengeance seeking. It is this obsession and pursuit of vengeance that kills him figuratively and literally. He has become a tragic hero living a living death in which he is unable to function in any way beyond pursuit of vengeance for this decades old wrong. He could not allow himself the luxury of love On The Tropical Paradise where he lived until the end of Sleeping Dogs, and he cannot allow himself the luxury now of loving Delia, despite knowing how much she would welcome his love. She would do anything for the sake of this potential love--anything.

John and Deliah had found common cause after encountering another of Castro's odd couples, Counselor Andrea Cort and the Porrinyards on New London in “A Stab of the Knife”. They end that story kicked off of New London by the Diplomatic Corps (unjustly I think, considering all the help they were) and sent off to a place in the opposite direction to the one John wishes to go. And one absolutely nowhere near anywhere Delia wants to go. Before “Draiken Dies,” Delia enlists in John's cause and begins to help him fight the people that hurt him so long ago. They prove themselves a formidable team in, “The Savannah Problem." Although I disagreed with his decision at the time, I guess John has shown that they really should have let “Sleeping Dogs” lie.

In Stab of the Knife, John learns that the organization that broke him/tried to break him decades ago has been in and out of favor with the Confederacy Diplomatic Corps numerous times during his hiatus. Though he is persona non grata to Andrea, she and Tasha Combs give him information that is useful to him but useless to them because the group’s past connections to the Confederacy rule out official action. These people have been developing mind control techniques, and for this Andrea would destroy them. But John’s enemies aren’t the only ones developing mind control techniques, and they are not worth the bother-- officially. In the past, for example, a man called (Beast) Magrison had brought death, destruction, and horror to millions using such techniques. His final days are spent in exile on a planet best described as pathetic, living among a people best described as pathetic. In The Third Claw of God, members of the Betelhine Corporation are experimenting with mind control techniques to sell as weapons. This precipitates a power struggle of which events in “A Stab of the Knife” play a part.

Shuffled off in the opposite direction from the direction that would be useful, Delia and John eventually make good use of this information-- in fact they use it to the best of possible effect-- to enlist an ally in their quest-- an ally with warships at her disposal.

There are unanswered questions in Draiken Dies. For instance, why is Dalia so much larger than average and so much stronger than average? Is it by design or by accident? We know that her golden skin and hair color is a matter of aesthetics and personal choice. Her unique qualities lead to speculation over who would play Delia on TV or in movies leads one to the conclusion that no one could approximate Delia’s size. However, height aside, Allison Janney from Mom could do a creditable job of portraying Deila’s physicality, attitude, and personality, and I think she would do well if anyone chose to make a movie about Delia.

The girl Delia takes in after rescuing her from a rapist has the appearance of being some sort of protege or perhaps she is a hint about the nature of Delia’s antecedents. Tellingly, the old man who antagonizes Delia in her cell says that the girl will never be like Deliah. But Delia responds that she has no desire for the girl to grow up to be like her.

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pond reflections by Philipp Michel Reichold Via Flickr: pond reflections

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Sun through trees reflected in pond at Walsingham Park November 2, 2020 by philipp michel reichold Via Flickr: (page 2)

Sun through trees reflected in pond at Walsingham Park November 2, 2020

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Doorways in the Sand and Personal Significance

(June 14, 2024)

I have enjoyed reading all of my life. When I was ten, while other kids were outside playing ball, I was sitting on the porch reading the dictionary. Eventually, I discovered science fiction, which I have read avidly for many years. Of all the story's I have read, the pivotal one for me is the story that prompted me to return to school and seek a BA in English Literature: Roger Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand. Doorways tells the story of Fred Cassidy, a professional student and his involvement in the quest for an alien artifact, the Star Stone. This story helped me to realize that, like Fred, I enjoy the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. It also has given me insight into my own life and helped me develop an understanding of how I fit in with the rest of the universe: somewhere between Zelazny's passion and Camus' futility.

In a memorable and for me significant part of this story, Fred reflects on the time a college adviser told him he was, "a living example of the absurdity of things" (Zelazny 27). He alludes passingly to a French novelist and goes on to describe the absurdity of the situation in which he as found himself. He has been staked-out in the desert by men who demand to know the location of the Star Stone; information he does not have (Zelazny 27-36). Besides arousing my curiosity about French existentialism, the comparison opened the way for me to examine the absurd in my own life. One absurdity in my life is that I perform well in a profession I loathe: nursing. I have been bound by monetary chains to nursing for more than twenty years. Unlike Fred, I lack a not quite dead uncle who can afford to sustain me in a career of scholarly pursuit (Zelazny 6). Financially, I am on my own. Thus, if I seek a career doing what I enjoy, learning for its own sake, I must first sacrifice my income to attend classes. If I reduce my income too greatly, I cannot afford school. Conversely, if I work too much, I cannot give my studies the attention they deserve. The best answer is a compromise, in which I work part time and attend classes part time.

Although Fred's life has its share of absurdity, he deals with life in a more active and dynamic faction than Camus' stranger or his judge-penitent. Fred is like Mersault and Clamence in that he is able to maintain a remarkable sense of detachment and objectivity. This is shown by his dispassionate summary of his torment by two of the story's villains (Zelazny 29-34). He differs from Camus' characters in his outlook on offenses and his emotional engagement with life. Mersault declaims, "The more I judge myself, the more right I have to judge you. Even better, I provoke you into judging yourself, and that relieves me of that much of the burden" (Camus, Fall 140). Thus, he condemns the world and himself. Like Clamence, Fred realizes that humans are not angels and seldom act from divine motives. Despite this, Fred reserves reserves judgment for those who have gone out of their way to injure him. However, he is still willing to forgive others if he can understand the circumstance that lead to their behavior. For instance, although Paul Byler has ransacked Fred's apartment and assaulted Fred in a desperate attempt to locate the stone, Fred understands his motivation and is willing to work with him to solve the problem (Zelazny 12-16). However, he avoids Clamence's morass of treating all offenders equally, as is seen in his treatment of the author of his woes. He does attempt to save this final culprit, but it is a utilitarian act rather than one of magnanimity (Zelazny 167).

Although Fred shares the Stranger's sense of detachment, he lacks his callousness and sense of alienation. Mersault, who behaves as though numb during the first half of the novel, expresses no feeling except a vague sense of guilt caused by what he surmises to be the feelings of others, even at his mother's funeral (Camus, Stranger 11). An active participant in life physically and intellectually, he has separated his feelings from life. Not until the second half of the novel, when his life hangs in the balance, does he express an interest in living (Camus, Stranger 135). Still, he feels that nothing has mattered, or will matter, or could matter because, all alike would be condemned to die one day. . ." (Camus, Stranger 152). Unlike Mersasult, Fred is fully engaged in his life and is appreciative of it. Though he may die one day, he is determined to live life on the best terms he can arrange. For instance, when his livelihood is terminated, he expresses and acts out of anger, punching the man responsible in the eye (Zelazny 87). On a more positive note, he goes out of his way to sustain and nourish his friendships. First he attempts to salvage his relationship with his girlfriend, sharing a weekend with her in which he takes obvious delight (Zelazny 168). Toward the end of the story he goes out of his way to take a gift to an old friend. Fred's delight in giving this gift, a new and exotic cognac, is evident (Zelazny 175). From these examples it is clear that Fred is determined to live, while Mersault has died long before his execution.

If given a choice, I should rather live than die, regardless of life's absurdity. According to Cruikshank, Camus wrote that whether or not life is worth living is the ultimate question (Cruikshank 212). For Clamence, the answer is "yes," or he would have jumped into the river long before he engages the audience in his one-sided conversation. I suppose he enjoys misery or hopes one day to improve his life-- "se la vie" with a question mark. Mersault wants to live, but has failed to learn how. Fred leads a life of the sort that is only read about; no one really lives this way-- "se la vie" in bold face and with an exclamation point. As for me, I am convinced there is no such thing as a meaning to life per se. If my life is to have any meaning, then I must be the one to define it. As I hurry through each day, paying lip service to my mortality, I sometimes forget to cherish my life. This, I think, is Mersault's real crime: that knowing his life would someday come to an end, he failed to cherish each moment as though it were his last. This then is my resolve: to cherish each day for whatever it brings. Se la vie. .

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Sunset Taylor Lake 2-10-21 by Philipp Michel Reichold Via Flickr: Sunset Taylor Lake 2-10-21

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8th Avenue SW in Largo at night

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Digitization of the human personality

(June 13, 2024)

Digitization of the human personality what Frederick Pohl called vastening in the Heechee Saga, is a plot device in three stories in Godlike Machines. It provides a plot twist in Baxter’s Return to Titan and Doctorow’s Life/Tomorrow and is common practice in the Amalgam universe of Egan’s Hot Rock.

I’m not sure what the big attraction is—self- preservation? If I take a picture of you and spread it around for all to marvel over as a close likeness, it still isn’t you. It’s just a picture. If I record your voice and upload to Youtube, it may sound just like you, but it isn’t. Do we say that Edith Pilaf lives on on Youtube singing Je ne regrette rien? Non. We may say it, but it is not literally true. The same is true if I digitize your personality and memory and upload them or download them into a clone or a robot. Or if you do the same to me. No matter how strong the resemblance, if my body is dead, it’s dead. You can clone my body and re-instill my essence. But it will not be me.

To return to the Heechee Saga, the main character, Robinette Broadhead, dies and his personality uploaded to Gigabyte Space. To keep him company, his lovely wife Essie is copied there too. So the reader has Meat Essie going on with her life and Virtual Essie keeping Robin company. There’s even a virtual Albert Einstein. Robin makes it all sound quite wonderful. He can think faster than ever and more deeply than ever and subjectively is living much longer because his micro processors process faster than human synapses. And he can virtually experience anything. Robin sends a copy of himself to try to talk things over with the Foe. Its all good though, because as a result of the encounter, the Foe is persuaded to not destroy all life in the galaxy because they see Robin as evidence that humanity and the Heechee are moving toward digitization and pose no threat to their plans to reboot the universe.

Doctorow has used personality digitization in previous works. In Tomorrow/Now he has it lurking in the background till the end. Jimmy’s prospects in the virtuality are murkier than Robin’s in Heechee, but at least he gets the girl. Sort of. As Jimmy puts it, “I tried to argue, but I couldn’t. Whether that was because there was a bug in me or because he was right, I couldn’t say. “ 265

Baxter puts the concept to fuller use in Titan. Poole and associates interview a “virtual backup” of Emry when they recruit him for their caper. Easier to deal with than the flesh and blood version. Emry likes the idea of “backups” not at all. He muses to himself, “And besides, the backup copy could never be you, the one who died; only a copy could live on.” “backup” Emry threatens violence when he realizes he is doomed after the conclusion of the interview. The best he can hope for is merger with the real Emry. Virtual General Cassata in Annals of the Heechee has a similar thought. He stays aboard Robin’s ship, the True Love, to postpone his liquidation. If he returned to JAWS, well, they couldn’t have a bunch of virtual generals hanging around. What would it do to the chain of command? Backup Emry in Return to Titan only gives in when Poole makes it clear that they’ll kill the real Emry if he does not. So he goes with them to Titan, with it understood that backup copies have been made for all just in case. The interesting plot twist of the story is the idea of the backup copy dying to save the real living, breathing person.

Spoiler alert--

In Egan’s Hot Rock, personal digitization is commonplace among members of the Amalgam, the galactic arm civilization that forms the political backdrop for the story. The two explorers, Azar from Hanuz, and Shelma from Bahar travel to Tallulah as digital packets in high energy gamma ray bursts. The benefit of traveling virtually lies in the lower cost of sending information instead of bodies that require supplies. The machine Azar resided in was, “ smaller than a grain of sand.”

Their home planets had sent ships three years earlier that combined to form the Mologhat Station to receive and support them. The station had on arrival sent insect sized robot probes with nano tech to the surface to perform the advance work, and the two explorers load their consciousnesses into one of these with room left over for part of their station library. They experience separate subjective milieus, but share information feeds, which can be fine tuned and provide information beyond the range of their natural senses. They gather large amounts of information about the rich and varied life on the planet, but learn nothing that explains why the planet is warm enough for liquid water and plant life. As Shelma puts it, “A billion years in deep space, and not an iceberg in sight.”

On an emotional level, they take backups for granted., without any qualms over merging consciousness. Perhaps because they leave their backups dormant until needed. There is no mention of whether they , like Vasli in Michael Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide, experience grief in learning of the death of their original selves. Vasli had been copied and the copy transmitted to Prospero System. Prospero Sysem Vasli is bereft when he learns of the death of his original self back in Deneb System. Azar does regret the disconnection from her life due to the time lag. 1500 years out. 1500 years back. Similarly, Vasli grieves also for the loss of his home world. He could send back a copy, but it would not be him. Prospero System Vasli would still be there. In the Amalgam, as with Neal Asher’s Polity universe, backups are commonplace and just make sense. They've left backups at home and make more after it becomes more urgent to locate any sentient inhabitants lurking under the water.

After making contact, they learn from natives how to harness the power that warms the planet to return home. They also learn that the energy source leaves a residual that supports digitized life, and that there is room for billions of civilizations. Shelma opts to continue exploring this possibility while Azar prepares to return home with a digitized delegation to the Amalgam. Personal digitization seems like a wonderful idea. Certainly it makes a story more interesting. It ensures personal survival (or the illusion thereof) should the original make an untimely demise, or the copy can go out and die for you. The only question is, as Thomas Wolfe puts it, is whether or not you can ever go home again.

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Reflections at boat ramp Walsingham Park November 3, 2020 by philipp michel reichold Via Flickr: Reflections at boat ramp Walsingham Park November 3, 2020

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gate post John S Taylor Park .JPG by Philipp Michel Reichold Via Flickr: gate post John S Taylor Park .JPG

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Sunset Lake Walsingham November 2, 2020 by philipp michel reichold Via Flickr: Sunset Lake Walsingham November 2, 2020

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On Death and Designation in Neal Asher's Transformation Trilogy

(June 12, 2024)

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος --Iliad

Gordon Dickson's Soldier Ask Not is set in a different sort of milieu than the Polity. In it civilization has splintered along personality types. the three main Splinter cultures consist of the Friendlies, people of faith, the Dorsai , warriors, and the Exotics, philosophers. The viewpoint character, Tam Olyn, a man of Old Earth, is a vengeful manipulator straight out of ancient Greece. Tam asks some Friendly soldiers if they think they will lose the current conflict on which Tam is ostensibly reporting. They respond overwhelmingly in the negative. For them the conflict will end in victory or death, and "what is death?"

One might well ask "what is death?" in the Polity universe, where we have recordings of people's memories and personalities that can be restored in machine or living body form. What then is Penny Royal's crime exactly? Like Tam Olyn, Theovald Spear begins his story obsessed with seeking revenge for needless, unjust deaths during wartime. Like Odysseus, Άνθρωπος πoλυτροπος, both are much traveled on journeys of many turnings. Both, filled with wrath, seek to avenge the wrongly dead. At the end of both their stories/journeys come revelation, the truth, and freedom.

Of those seeking revenge against Penny Royal, Spear is least changed by the experience. Physically, he has gone largely unchanged. The mental and emotional changes are subtle. One change is his obsession with confronting Penny Royal. Another is a feeling that he is "pursuing a set destiny". According to google translate, "Thor vald" means "Thor selected" or "Thor's power", and Thorvald is selected by Penny Royal to represent those slain at Panarchia. Spear has received not only his own memories but the memories of others among Penny Royal's victims. He thus has a unique perspective of events on Panarchia. Like Tam he has the power of objectivity. Thus he has been given the power to forgive or judge/execute Penny Royal. A spear set to be Its chosen instrument.

Two other of Penny Royal's victims were self-selected, Isobel Satomi and Sverl. Satomi, whose name means "beauty" in Japanese, is/was a beautiful woman on the outside and a hideous monster on the inside. Through the miracle (Elizabeth can be translated "My God is abundance") of Penny Royal's nanotech, the ugly shines straight on through. Later, with the monster separated out, what remains is a memstore echo of the person that was. She is left to contemplate her beauty that was lost. One is left to wonder if there would be any value/point/benefit to restoring her further. There may not be much to restore.“There is nothing left for me,” she replied. “I just want to go away now."

Satomi lacks character or depth-- she is unable to look more deeply than her immediate urgings. Like the war machine she was transformed into physically, she locks onto a goal and moves to achieve it, no time to think of consequences. She sees that Mr. Pace has become invincible a la Penny Royal and desires similar invincibility. When Trent Sobel expressed doubt that Mr Pace is happy with his transformation, she could not grasp the possibility that Mr Pace has made a Shaitan's bargain. Once separated from the war machine and preserved in crystal, she cannot let go of her anger at Penny Royal for the transformation he gave her. She desires restoration to her pre Penny Royal state, but not redemption.His next Prador instinct was to find some way to punish them, but then he decided he was better ttan that.

Sverl's transformation is in the opposite direction from Satomi's. He goes from being a monster obsessed to ein Mensch. He was was obsessed with hating/killing humans, with his displeasure with the outcome of the war and the king that so ended it, with understanding how/why the war was lost, and finally, he was obsessed with Penny Royal. He is the most transformed and the most beneficially transformed of Penny Royal's revenge seekers. Sverl spent a hundred years studying the human condition and developed a great understanding thereof. He became a very unpradorish Prador- an intellectual. He developed hobbies and worked on science projects in his spare time. He gained not only the understanding of what he sought but a greater understanding of all things. He has left the war in the past and with it any resentment of Riss for infecting him with parasites. He has outgrown hate and the need for vengeance and has replaced it with an intellectual life and a pragmatism that opens new vistas to him. One might hope the Prador king can forgive the inconvenience of his survival and see him as an exemplar for Prador in the future."And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?" --Genesis 4:6

Apart from the Penny Royal experience, Spear and Sverl have common ground. Both are intellectual and gifted with enquiring minds. Both have that rarest of gifts, extreme competence. They contrast with the villains of the piece, Cvorn and Brockle, whose minds are set and whose competence is inadequate.But, either way, Sverl was dead, and all Cvorn’s plans in ruins.

Despite availing himself of some Polity tech, Dragoncorp augs, Cvorn remains very much as he and Sverl were at the end of the war. Despite/because of the steadfastness of his personality and attitudes, he sets about rejuvenating himself physically and sexually. This rejuvenation inflates his arrogance and impairs his judgment, and provides Sfolk with the manner of his undoing.. Unchanged is his hatred for the Polity, the soft humans and the AI's alike. He very much resents losing the war.. He has this in common with Satomi-- a longing for vengeance. More than this, he wants to restart the war. He has no particular dislike for Penny Royal, beyond his hatred of Polity AI's, but Sverl is both an enemy and a means to an end. He would reveal the abomination that is Sverl, thereby inflaming passions throughout the Kingdom and re-igniting the war. Caught up in his feelings/anger/hatred, he never considers the surety of the disastrous outcome another Polity-Prador war would have for the Kingdom."For blood with blood shall, while I sit as judge, / Be satisfied, and the law discharg’d” The Spanish Tragedy III.vi.35–36.

Neither Cvorn nor Brockle is one of Penny Royal's victims. The most important commonality between Penny Royal and Brockle is insanity in the form of homicidal mania. It is a matter of degree. Whereas Penny Royal has a part that is insane, Brockle's insanity is all pervasive. Penny royal subdues and harnesses his insanity. In Brockle insanity gains full rein/reign. He is unstable, and his insanity escalates so that his self justification for his crimes is ever changing and his obsession with Penny Royal ever growing. He began as a sadistic cop who took more pleasure in hurting people than the job required. Not quite breaking the law sufficiently to merit/suffer execution, he is paroled to the prison hulk Tyburn. (Tyburn was a place of execution in Middlesex).

He shares with Penny Royal the abilities to manipulate matter with nanotech-- disassembling/reassembling people and things, and he can separate his parts-- shoaling and adding more sub units as needs arise. As his abilities grow, so grows his need to end Penny Royal and so increases his megalomania. The obsession leads him to not only commit actual crimes punishable by the ending of him but also to see himself as supplanting(?) Penny Royal. He begins by wishing to end an evil threat the Polity AI's are unable to recognize and ends by seeking to destroy Penny Royal and take his place in Layden's Sink. Confusingly, he will either cause a time paradox that would destroy the Polity and the Kingdom but that's O.K. or it is he that enters the sink to begin with, and not Penny Royal, so all the better. (I hate temporal mechanics.)If you boil the water surrounding a prador, it won’t even realize it is dying. Brockle ate itself for a thousand years..

Both these villains, Cvorn and Brockle, are profoundly arrogant and supremely overconfident. Like Satomi, they are locked-in and incapable of meaningful change/growth.If they would just get on with their lives and let Sverl on the one hand and Penny Royal on the othergo, they could be so much better off. Each is too obsessed to see objectively where their best interests lie. Each comes to a bad end because of it.

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shadow on Duke Energy building January 9, 2021.JPG by Philipp Michel Reichold Via Flickr: shadow on Duke Energy building January 9, 2021.JPG

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cactus against blue sky, Largo, Florida February 3, 2021 by Philipp Michel Reichold Via Flickr:

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Red hibiscus

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On Dahlia by Edward Ashton

(June 11, 2024)

I chose. I choose. -- Mr Crane, Neal Asher

Any story that references the Phaedo merits notice and attention. This is especially true of a ghost story full of regrets. One measure of our humanity is our ability to make choices and then be unable to live with the results. He was there to throw himself off a cliff.

As in Sophie's Choice, fate is sometimes a cruel l bitch who throws us a horror we aren't prepared for. At once a choice is demanded and in an instant we must choose with a lifetime to regret so choosing.

The author beautifully illustrates the moment of choice. He shows us what the main character saw and felt and heard when the choice was made, capturing the surreal horror of the moment. A lifetime of regret.

If to make horrible choices makes us human it makes us monsters as well. And so to be human is to be a monster-- at least in one's own eyes. Especially in one's own eyes.

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#review#sciencefiction

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Dead pine tree at dusk Walsingham Park November 3, 2020 by philipp michel reichold Via Flickr: Dead pine tree at dusk Walsingham Park November 3, 2020

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