Archives for May 2011

The latest Point of Inquiry podcast features a very interesting interview with Jonathan Kay about his new book Among the Truthers, about conspiracy theory psychology. I was particularly fascinated by this part:

“There is a guy by the name of Phil Mole, really smart guy, he writes for Skeptic magazine, and he’s interviewed a bunch of conspiracy theorists, and he told me that he believes the average conspiracy theorist is much smarter than the average citizen, and the reason he gave is very interesting. It’s that smart people always feel that they have the answers. From the time they were a kid they’ve taught themselves that they’re the smartest person in the room, that they can figure things out, that they don’t need experts to tell them things because they can, you know, surf the internet and draw their own conclusions. And so they have a lot of hubris, they say well you know I’m good at this — you know, I’m a good dentist, or I’m a good stock broker, or I’m a good whatever, so obviously I’m going to be good at piecing together the details of Barack Obama’s birthplace, or I’m going to be good at the details of 9/11, or I’m going to be able to figure out if vaccines are poisoning my kid, whereas folks who maybe aren’t as smart, who’ve gone through life listening to experts, they’re not going to have that same level of hubris. And it’s true, when you talk to conspiracy theorists they’re very cocky. They are people who think they can figure anything out from first principles, which is why often they spend half their life on the internet trying to do their own research on subjects that, frankly, the rest of us just trust experts to do.”

Here’s a photo from an event I went to last night: a Knopf author showcase featuring Karen Russell, Jim Shepard, Ben Marcus, and Sloane Crosley. If you have really, really good eyesight you can sorta see me in the third row. I think this is the first author reading I’ve ever been to with stadium seating.

My short story “Power Armor: A Love Story” will be appearing in the John Joseph Adams anthology Armored. Here’s the cover art by Kurt Miller:

And here’s an excerpt from the story:

    He sighed. “You know I’m starting this new foundation. Don’t you wonder why?”
    “Because you care about civil liberties?”
    “But why?”
    She said nothing.
    “It’s because in the future, where I come from, there are no civil liberties. None.”
    “Oh,” she said.
    “I had never been disloyal,” he said softly. “You can’t be, where I come from. Our thoughts are monitored. I’d been identified early as a promising scientist, and had risen through the ranks to head of my research division. We’d developed a high-energy device that possessed some unusual properties — like, it could project a man-sized object into the past, creating a branching timeline. Theoretically, at least. Completely useless, as far as our leaders were concerned, but interesting. Then one day the thought popped into my head: I could escape.”
    He stopped and stared out over the water. “Once I’d had the thought, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be picked up for ‘neural re-education.’ So I had to act fast. The problem was, even if I succeeded in traveling into the past, my voyage would create a temporal wake large enough for them to send someone after me.”
    He met her eyes. “I don’t mean to scare you, Mira, but where I come from there are … secret police. Unlike anything you can imagine. Cyborgs. Shapeshifters. I’d have no chance against one of them. Unless…” He showed the hint of a smile. “In the same lab was something else we’d been working on. This armor.” He raised his gauntleted hands. “Wearing this, I’d be impervious to anything. So I could escape, but at a cost — I must never take off the armor, not for an instant. Because if I did, the agent sent to punish me would surely strike.”
    She glanced around at the trees, the shadows. She shivered
    “And that’s the story,” he said. “So, do you still want to grab dinner sometime? I’ll understand if you say no.”
    “I … I’ll have to think about it,” she said. “This is a lot to take in.”
    “I know,” he said.
    After a moment, he added, “I should probably be getting back.”
    “All right.”
    As they retraced their route, she thought: He never takes off the armor. Never. Not for an instant, he said.
    That was going to make it very hard, she thought, to kill him.

Here’s a snippet of text from my Barsoom story “Three Deaths.” The story concerns a green martian warrior who loses two of his four arms in a duel with John Carter.

    Ghar Han scowled and walked on past. He sought out the tent of Xan Malus, jeddak of the Warhoon, and was shown into the presence of the great lord, a cold, imperious man who clutched a spiked scepter and sat upon a jeweled throne.
     “Kaor, Ghar Han,” said Xan Malus. “It pleases us to see that you are up and useful to us once more.”
     “Kaor, Excellency,” said Ghar Han, crossing his two arms and bowing his head. “Thank you.”
     “Now tell us,” said the jeddak, “why have you come?”
     “Excellency,” said Ghar Han, “if it please you, I should like to pursue the Earthman John Carter, and challenge him once again to–”
     “No, no,” said Xan Malus impatiently. “It does not please us. John Carter’s death is nothing to me, and in any event you would not succeed. I relinquish no asset, however small. I will not sacrifice one of my warriors, even a cripple, to no end.”
     “Excellency, I–”
     “I know, I know,” said the jeddak, with a wave. “You would prefer an honorable death to your present humiliation. But what care I for your honor, Ghar Han? I am jeddak, and you are mine, and so long as I breathe you shall be deployed to my ends, not yours. Tomorrow we strike camp and journey to retrieve the eggs of our offspring, and I desire that every able warrior be on hand to guard them. You know our wishes. Go.”

My story “Three Deaths” will be appearing in the John Joseph Adams anthology The New Adventures of John Carter of Mars. From the press release:

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing announced today it will publish a new original anthology called The New Adventures of John Carter of Mars, edited by John Joseph Adams and based on the characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Publication will be in the spring of 2012 and will coincide with the 100th anniversary of A Princess of Mars, the first book to feature John Carter. The anthology envisions all-new adventures set in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fantastical version of Mars … The collection will include stories by Joe R. Lansdale; Jonathan Maberry; David Barr Kirtley; Peter S. Beagle; Tobias S. Buckell; Robin Wasserman; Theodora Goss; Genevieve Valentine; L. E. Modesitt, Jr.; Garth Nix; Chris Claremont; S. M. Stirling; Catherynne M. Valente; and Austin Grossman. … In addition, each story will feature an original illustration by noted artists such as Charles Vess, John Picacio, Michael Kaluta, and Misako Rocks.

My short story “The Ontological Factor” has been accepted by the young adult fiction magazine Cicada and will be appearing later this year. Here’s an excerpt:

    “Okay,” she said, as we went, “you know that there are different worlds, and that it’s possible to open portals between them. The first thing you have to understand is that not all worlds are created equal. Some are more real than others.”
    I chimed in, “But who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t?”
    “Oh,” she said. “We use this.” She reached into the knapsack and pulled out a device that looked like a black-and-purple striped candy cane. “It’s called an O-meter. Each world, and everything native to it, has a specific Ontological Factor, or OF, which is what the machine measures. Here, I’ll show you.”
    She pointed the device at me, and sections of it lit up in sequence until about half its length was glowing.
    “See?” she said. “You’re a five.”
    “Oh,” I said. “Is that good?”
    “No,” she said.
    “Oh.”
    “But hey, it could be worse. Like those degenerates you ran into earlier. Twos. Total figments. Not real enough to do any damage even to you.”
    So that’s why I’d survived the attack of the fish-men, I thought. That made sense. Sort of.
    “What number are you?” I asked.
    “Ten,” she said. “Obviously.”