Ordinarily, I’m leery of genetically engineering animals, let alone releasing them into the wild. But in the case of dengue- and Zika- bearing mosquitoes, I’ll make an exception.
“750 million genetically engineered mosquitoes approved for release in the Florida Keys“
“Louisiana woman planted mysterious seeds before she heard the warning not to“
All across the nation, people have been receiving unsolicited packets of seeds in the mail. Some people, like this woman, planted them because she had previously ordered seeds and didn’t realize this wasn’t her order.
The seeds are often shipped from China. Theories are that they could be a marketing ploy or an attempt to sabotage U.S. plants by sending invasive exotics.
Invasive exotic plants, that is.
I have a different theory.
The reason you should never plant unsolicited seeds, nor ever put them in water, is that they might contain … pod people. Obviously.
I think we all need to brush up on our science fiction.
“Yeah maybe,” Heather said. “I think we’re speculating. It seems like whenever we have a conversation like this, it’s almost a guarantee that it’s not how things are going to happen. Like the writers of our lives are trying to be intentionally unpredictable.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Ace said. “It does seem uncanny how true that is. So, if you were a writer and you wanted to mislead your readers so the story would be filled with unexpected twists, would you write your basic story with an outline and then go back and insert conversations like this one to intentionally mislead the readers or would you write the book as you go and change the plot as the characters figured out what’s going on?”
“Neither,” said Heather. “I would know all the characters, know their personalities and abilities, then throw it all together and see what happens. Even I would be surprised at how the events play out.”
“I think that would make for a completely chaotic story,” Ace considered. “I suppose if the characters were likable or made a lot of smart remarks, people might read it anyway even if it did seem like the author had no idea where the story was going.”
“I would totally put this conversation in the book,” Heather said.
Formulacrum by Rich Colburn, pp. 326 – 327
“Maybe you’re right,” [said the main character]. “Sometimes I feel like I’m living out some demented writer’s attempt to package his pet philosophy in an outrageous sci-fi novel filled with contrived, unrealistic events, bad dialogue, and flat characters who use far too many vocabulary words. Have you ever felt that suspicion?”
The Author’s face twitched a little. He seemed a bit put off by the comment.
The Resolve of Immortal Flesh, by Rich Colburn, p. 52
Heather … approached the water’s edge. She looked at Johnny.
“You may hear a strange sound like a transcendent being uttering terrifying speech in a foreign tongue that unravels the fabric of the universe,” she said. “But I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
The Resolve of Immortal Flesh, by Rich Colburn, p. 375
What’s your stereotype of “indie” (independently published) books? Is it a tame memoir that would interest only the author’s family? A bitter rant where the author finally gets to have their say? An amateurish sci-fi filled with cringe-inducing grammatical errors?
I’ve read all of these types. (And, for the record, my opinion is not the same about all of them. The family memoirs, in particular, will be valuable historical records one day.) But in case you didn’t know it, there is so much more to the world of indie books. Here are two indie authors I’ve discovered, both worth reading and each weirder than the last.
I discovered Katie right here on WordPress. She likes horror, which I didn’t think was really my speed, but I just had to buy her book to see the results of her self-publishing. The book is, in a word, professional. The cover, the formatting, the editing … it all looks and reads just like any high-quality YA paranormal book you’d pick up in a bookstore (or, in my case, a library). And no, it’s not a paranormal romance where the ghost is the girl’s love interest. (Thank God.) It just features a normal, smart high schooler who starts seeing ghosts. And, refreshingly, her parents are all right, unlike in so many YA books where the parents are either dead, clueless or part of the problem.
And the horror? Well, there are some horrible revelations at the end … but they didn’t turn out to be anything I couldn’t handle. Perhaps I’ve been toughened up by watching Stranger Things.
Full disclosure: I knew Rich before he wrote these books. He’s weird. (I honestly don’t think he’ll be offended if he reads that.) When, having not seen him for years, I heard that Rich had indie published a couple of books, I eagerly bought them. They are exactly the kind of books I would have expected from him, which makes them a little hard to describe.
From the Amazon blurb: “What if the spirit world was rampant with technology sophisticated beyond anything mankind has imagined? What if a sociopath got his hands on a powerful piece of this technology? What if you couldn’t die no matter how much damage your body sustained?
“Join a reluctant hero on his quest to discover what the heck he should do with his time now that he has unlimited power and the world as he knew it collides with the unseen world. Will demon-possessed biomechanical monsters kill everyone? Will there be enough coffee to last through to the end of the world? Will that play into our hero’s decision whether or not to bother saving it? These are questions we’ve all wondered about. Explore these and other important philosophical questions as you follow the adventure that was contrived to do just that.
“The Collision series offers a technological explanation for the supernatural. Human psychology, questions of life and death, and the nature of the supernatural play a critical role in the story of a man who becomes aware of the technology used by beings existing in higher modes of reality.”
The Collision books are slightly less professional than Specter. They could have used a second pass with an editor. But they are a joy to read because they are just so darned clever. To take a sampling of the chapter titles from Resolve:
Chapter 34: When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object, It’s Best If They Avoid Eye Contact
Chapter 35: Omnipotence: It’s There When You Least Expect It
Chapter 36: I Love the Java Jive but the Java Jive has Found Me Wanting
Chapter 37: Seriously? Another Plot-Thickening Thread?
Chapter 41: It Came From My Parents’ Basement
Believe it or not, these titles are not just one-liners. All of them make sense when you read the chapter. I really don’t think a traditionally published book could have gotten away with chapter titles like this.
So now you are probably thinking that the Collision series is like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And it sort of is, if that book had been written by a Christian. But it’s not just metaphysics and humor. The book also becomes surprisingly poignant (in the context of all the weirdness), and also very horrifying and tense. Especially the scene in the parents’ basement. Also, be it noted that the monster made out of corpses in Stranger Things was familiar to me because an even more horrifying version had already roamed the pages of Formulacrum.
As we are talking this month about different facets of love, here is confirmed outdoorsman Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen talking about his love for nature … and, not unrelatedly, his unlove for what he calls “green facism.”
“Human body temperature in the U.S. has decreased over time, study finds”
I figured out years ago that my own body temp is down in the low 97s. I would feel feverish but couldn’t “prove” it because I was reading 98.6 or 98.5. Later, taking my kids’ temps when they were not sick, I realized their normal temperatures were lower as well. Now, it turns out it’s not just us. It’s pretty much everyone.
Just another example of how a firmly established fact can be slightly wrong … wrong enough to cause us trouble.
… that I thought I knew about DNA.
“Transplant patient finds out his DNA has been replaced by that of his donor”
Out of Babel Books 