Henry Kuttner "Doom World" (novelette, adventure, free): A precursor to Jurassic Park!

This is a sequel to author's "Hollywood on the Moon", & is completely set on moon.

There is too much similarity to Jurassic Park that was still many decades into future. Artificially engineered dangerous beasts at a place that is not their natural habitat. Nature takes over, safeguards break down, & mayhem results.

Story summary.

The story happens on the sets of a movie named "Doom World". Set is in the caverns under the city of "Hollywood on the Moon" on the far side of moon. Set is supposed to model the jungles of radioactive Pluto, with its many dangers!

Beasts on the set are biologically engineered, with radio-controlled electronic implants in their brains to control them. Story calls them robots, but they're not like any robots you've read about.

In the course of the story, nature takes over & the electronic implants serve little more than to irritate the animals. Hell breaks loose in the artificial jungle of the set, & the heroes & the film crew will have to face it...

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1938.
Read online at UNZ.
Note: I read it on an Android tablet with Firefox, & the document was a rather badly behaved one. Each page would allow only partial reading... until I move tablet to landscape orientation, & then back to portrait! On PC, it seems to display ok.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Christopher Anvil's "Revolt!" (novelette, humor, machine monster, free)

First half is a hilarious turf war between two government departments. Later half is a fast paced drama to overcome massive machine monsters running amok; less interesting than first half but readable.

Story is set in Cygnus system in orbit around a high gravity world. Humans want to mine it for some ore, but cannot normally get down because of high g. They must "wear" state of the art "delGrange suits" to go down. But the catch is, these suits are too perfect...

Note.

There is a bit of Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe" (download an audio, or a comic book adaptation) & Clifford Simak's "Desertion" (download as part of a larger package) here (a variant was filmed in "Avatar"). A man can get down to an environment normally impossible to man only in a different body. Only he starts liking his new body better than the original one...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, April 1958.
Download full text from Baen Books, or as part of the scans of Astounding (British Edition), July 1958 where it was reprinted.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Christopher Anvil.

Mari Ness' "And the Hollow Space Inside" (short story, cyborg, free)

We've come a long way since C L Moore invented cyborgs in "No Woman Born". Moore's version was an extreme one: only brain of a fire victim could be saved; so she got a steel body. Since then, most (but not all) cyborgs have had an intermediate form - some parts of the body are mechanical.

I liked this story for a single reason: this is one of the rare stories that looks at the other extreme form of cyborgs as the central idea: what if someone is born deformed, where deformity is a complete lack of brain tissue? In this case, the baby is saved by providing computer to complete the individual.

The story, however, does not share the spirit of Moore's original. Moore doesn't demand the reader's sympathy; we're happy & inspired to meet a complete & competent individual. This one is more like many modern stories of the ilk - emotional scenes galore.

Fact sheet.

First published: Clarkesworld, February 2012.
Download text/audio from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2012" list.

Biren Shah's "An Easy Sale" (flash fiction, free)

Actually, I don't know why I liked it - probably because of funny language. Story itself is ... sort of ... routine - interaction of a man & a women, neither truly human. But the language is interesting.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 27 October 2011.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Mary E Pearson's "The Rotten Beast" (short story, cyborg, free)

How much of body renewal, past an accident e.g., by doctors before you start wondering if you are really yourself?

Fact sheet.

First published: Tor.com, 30 November 2011.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Joe Haldeman's "More Than the Sum of His Parts" (short story, free): A man's transformation into a cyborg, then monster

This story is ... sort of ... a very abrupt attachment of John Varley's "Bagatelle" (download) to the middle of C L Moore's "No Woman Born".

A serious accident victim is saved by transforming him into a cyborg. He begins to like the new body parts. Then he starts enjoying his new found power too much, & quickly becomes a monster. Monster is easily disposed off, of course, by a techno-gimmick.

Caution: Bits of the story have explicit sex scenes, & describe male anatomy in some detail.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, May 1985.
Download full text from Lightspeed.
Rating: B.

John Varley's "Bagatelle" (novelette, terrorism, free): Defusing a human bomb

In spite of the subject, it's a very light read - sometimes even funny.

Story summary.

Hans Leiter has agreed to become an unusual kind of suicide bomber - a cyborg bomb. Stripped of body - just his brain & nerves leading to it will go into this bomb. And it is a nuclear bomb - capable of devastating a whole city. The cyborg that is the man + bomb + a vehicle + the sensors that let the cyborg perceive & respond to environment. The bomb has planted itself in the middle of a busy shopping area, & has announced its intention to blast in 4 hours!

This is the story of defusing this complex bomb - Chief of Municipal Police for New Dresden, Anna-Louise Bach, has hired the bomb disposal expert Roger Birkson for the job. New Dresden is a city on moon, where the action happens.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, October 1976.
Rating: A.
Download full text from Internet Archive.
An audio version of this story is included, among other things, in Aural Delights #32 podcast of StarShipSofa.
Included in Ellen Datlow's SciFiction classics.
Related: Stories about terrorism, cyborgs, or moon.

Free fiction: 2 Hindi novels & a short story of Zeashan Zaidi & Yashwant Kothari

Zeashan's both stories are science fiction. I haven't read Yashwant's novel, but it is probably non-genre.

Zeashan's short story "Avatar": It's about a cyborg planted by an unnamed X-country in India - to play godman, & help build a favorable public opinion towards imports from X country.
Download original Hindi as a 4-part serial: 01, 02, 03, 04. Or automatic translation to English by Google: 01, 02, 03, 04.
PS: I wish all serials have their own label - so a single link needs to be posted & opened!

Zeashan also recently finished posting his serial novel "Taboot" (tr "Coffin"). Download original Hindi, or automatic English translation by Google. This is about the hibernating ancients awoken accidentally in a cave in Assam, & their adventures in modern India. Lot of (low-end) humor.

Both stories make a light read, later in a fun mood too.

Yashwant Kothari's satirical novel "Asatyam Ashivam Asundaram": At Internet Archive.

Related: Stories of Zeashan Zaidi; Hindi fiction; humor.

Arthur C. Clarke's "A Meeting With Medusa" (novella, hard sf): Exploring the upper atmosphere of Jupiter in a manned vehicle

In spite of some fantastic elements, I think it would be best described as a hard sf story. Balloons (eventually, hot hydrogen balloon on Jupiter), airships, & rockets - to eventually get to a vehicle suitable for exploring the upper atmosphere of Jupiter near its less violent equatorial regions.

Reading it brought out strong association with another story I read not too long back - David Moles' "Finisterra", one of the Hugo Award 2008 nominees. Cut the rigor out of Clarke's story & take only the more fantastic elements, & replace the cautious exploration story with a poachers' story - & you pretty much have the plot of "Finisterra".

While generally quite readable, it suffers from a flaw that keeps creeping into many Clarke stories - tendency to include many tangent threads (but less so than in some of his other stories).

1. We have an airship ("Queen Elizabeth IV") crash during its testing somewhere near Grand Canyon in US - it was "the largest single space ever enclosed by man": "three-tenths of a mile long". We will learn a lot of its design & operations details.
2. "Superchimps" serving as technical handymen.
3. Potential life-threatening effects of satellite communications' half-second time lag: Airship accident was triggered by its collision with a remote controlled flying "camera platform". A manoeuvre required entry of this smaller vehicle into the hold of airship, & it was turbulent weather. Around the time of mating, the remote controller was using satellite communications rather than radio - this affected in split-second response time required during mating.
4. The cyborg hero: The airship Commander, Howard Falcon, was among the badly hurt during the crash (a lot of others died). He was saved, but only as a cyborg. He will be the one physically exploring Jupiter's upper atmosphere later in the story: "He alone could travel unprotected on lunar surface. The life-support system inside the metal cylinder that had replaced his fragile body functioned equally well in space or under water. Gravity fields ten times that of Earth were an inconvenience, but nothing more."
5. A balloon trip across Gangetic plains in northern India.

Story summary.

Main story is about the Jupiter exploration mission sometime late twenty-first century (story spans a few years - about 150 years after the Hindenburg accident).

Mothership will park in the "radiation shadow" of Jupiter V (one of its tiny moons), while Howard goes down solo for a 3 (local) days adventure in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. He will be moving in a radiation-shielded vehicle ("Kon-Tiki")whose design draws inspiration from many kinds of air vehicles.

He will observe many kinds of phenomena - including effects of the atmospheric shock waves & massive electrical discharges triggered by the equivalent of volcanic eruption on its surface ("or whatever passed for a surface on Jupiter") lying far below the human accessible regions, & a massive whirlpool ("some six hundred miles across"). It's the second time I've seen Clarke dwell on the maelstrom theme; "Maelstrom II" didn't involve a whirlpool, but is inspired from Edgar Allan Poe's "A Descent in the Maelstrom".

He will also observe two kinds of local creatures - a bunch of pack hunters, & a supermassive hunted creature ("more than a mile across" & "with scores of dangling tentacles" - "about a hundred thousand times as large as the biggest whale"). He dubs the former "mantas", & later "Medusa". Among other things, Medusa have radio senses! We will see an unsuccessful local hunting event.

He will eventually escape in a hurry on the third day when a Medusa gets too curious about his vehicle - puny compared to size of Medusa.

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. Arthur Clarke's "More Than One Universe"
3. Arthur Clarke's "The Sentinel"
4. Arthur Clarke's "The Wind From the Sun"
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, December 1971.
Rating: A
Winner of Nebula Award 1971 in novella category.

C L Moore's "No Woman Born" (novella, science fiction): Among the defining cyborg stories

I can no longer find the reference, but I recall this being referred to as the first cyborg story. Reference I can find now, Scifipedia article on the story, has this quote of Martin Greenberg: "The concept of the ‘cyborg’, part-machine and part-human, had existed in science fiction before this story was published, but no one had explored the potential of the idea until No Woman Born. It was also one of the first to examine the future of the arts in science fiction, and a classic story of anguish and rebirth."

I know of very old stories that mix human parts with animal parts to create new creatures, sometimes with inanimate things too. But even being among the first modern cyborg stories will make it worth a look.

Of the perhaps a half dozen solo stories of Moore I've read, this wins hands down in entertainment value & concept. It has everything a classic should have, except tight narrative. It still suffers from usual pre-Kuttner Moore flaws: tendency to use too many adjectives, dragginess, & superfluous sentences. Still, it's too good a story to miss.

While there are just too many cyborg stories around, let's see a few comparisons with better known stories I've seen before I get down to its specifics.

1. In del Ray's "Helen O'Loy", & far more interesting & better known Asimov's "The Bicentennial Man", we see an advance robot fighting to get recognized as a human. Here we have a human who is not quite human - she's both more & less; story devotes substantial parts to her efforts to come to terms with her identity.
   
   Like those stories, we also see some space devoted to the necessity of death for this not-exactly-human entity; idea of immortality will make her too inhuman: "She was not cut off from the rest of her race in the essence of their humanity, for though she wore a body of steel & they perishable flesh, yet she must perish too, & the same fears & faiths still united her to mortals & humans, though she wore the body of Oberon's inhuman knight."
   
   We see more uncomfortable musings too: "providing, of course, that the mind inside the metal did not veer from its inherited humanity as the years went by. A dweller in a house may impress his personality upon the walls, but subtly the walls too, may impress their own shape upon the ego of the man."
2. At some level, there are parallels with Poul Anderson's "Call Me Joe": hope for a new full life for serious accident victims in a new body, even if the new body is not quite human.
3. Eric Donovan, a character that appears in some stories of Larry Niven, is a lot like heroine of this story. But Niven's version less well developed; here it's the center of the story.
4. We see some themes, in passing, here that will again be seen in some detail in Kuttner &Moore's hilarious story "The Proud Robot". In fact, except for tight narrative, this story could have been placed with many superlative stories author will later turn out with Kuttner.

Story gets its titled from "old words James Stephens wrote long ago for another Deirdre, also lovely & beloved & unforgotten after two thousand years":

The time comes when our hearts sink utterly,
When we remember Deirdre & her tale,
And that her lips are dust.
There has been again no woman born
Who was so beautiful; not one so beautiful.

These quotes from the story include both words of wisdom, & highlights & moods of the story.

Story summary.

Deirdre, a famous singer/dancer in New York City theaters, died in a fire. Rescuers reached soon enough while her brain was still alive, though no other part of body could be salvaged.

Note: The story is set in a world where New York theater programs are widely telecast on TV - so she's better known than a theater-only actress would be. I got somewhat irritated by author's repeated insistence of the "whole world" as Deirdre's audience, where author seemed to have no clue to how cranky & heterogeneous the "whole world" is in their entertainment & beauty preferences.

Maltzer, a technical man, with the help of a lot of money & a team of helpers, has put her in a newly created hinge-less metal body of a robot. Her brain directly interfaces with this metallic body for control. Her body is much smaller than a typical robot's because in robots, "much of the space had to be devoted to the inadequate mechanical brains that guided them about their duties. Deirdre’s brain still preserved & proved the craftsmanship of an artisan far defter than man." The really funny thing I found in this episode was: the entire project - from fire to resurrection - took just one year!!!

Now, at the end of the year, she's ready. She's been through shock, then acceptance & even liking of her new asexual metallic body with few external feature. And only two senses - hearing, & speech; no sense of touch, odor, or taste. Throughout the story, this issue will occupy a lot of space, & we will see a theme of "The Proud Robot" develop - the idea that 5 senses are all that can be: "why do you think sight is the last of the senses? It may be the latest, ... but why do you think it's the last?" Turns out, while our cyborg has lost three senses, she's gained some others - even though Maltzer has no clue how she got them.

Main conflict in the story is: Maltzer's conviction that she's subhuman because of lack of 3 senses, that this subhumanness will start showing soon, & people can then hurt her; so she needs to be protected, & kept from interacting with anyone except an intimate circle. And, after her revelation of her superhuman abilities, her own concerns: "I'm afraid. It isn't unhappiness... - it's fear. I don't want to draw so far away from the human race. I wish I needn't. That's why I'm going back on the stage - to keep in touch with them while I can. But I wish there could be others like me... I’m lonely".

Story has one more major character: John Harris, her manager before accident, & probably her lover/husband too (am not sure of later). But he has only a sort of supportive role.

Story also has what I consider a peripheral comparison of Maltzer's position with that of protagonist in Shelley's Frankenstein. But I've not read Shelley's original - so may be author might have a point in comparison.

Collected in.

1. "The Best of C L Moore".
2. Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 6 (1944)".
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding Science Fiction, December 1944.
Rating: A

John Scalzi's "The Sagan Diary": Cyborg soldier falls in love, & decides to become an ordinary human

While my first Scalzi, this story is apparently part of a larger collection of short stories & novels by Scalzi set in the same "universe".

While nominally science fiction, this is of the softer kind of science fiction. No ghosts etc, but no science either. But great prose, & far too many quotable quotes. I didn't get bored at all, but there is nothing worth remembering either.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

This is a frame story. Main story is narrated in a "diary" - a collection of computer files produced by "BrainPal" dump of the brain of Lt Jane Sagan of Colonial Defense Forces (CDF)! She was created (rather than born, as we all are), & was immediately as competent as an adult human - much like a robot. Narration is at her age 9 years - already a veteran of many wars on different worlds & an efficient killer.

She has fallen in love with Major John Perry, also of CDF, & wants to retire from military. Military rules require a dump of her consciousness before retirement. Because she wants to lead an ordinary life, her brain dump will be transferred to another soldier body!

Frame is in the form of a complaint from one department of military about another to a high official - with the diary attached as a case in point.

Diary offers glimpses of the life of Jane, her violant nature, empathy (but not remorse) she feels for her victims, her discovery of "born" kinds of humans & how she is different, her love affair, etc.

Fact sheet.

"The Sagan Diary", short story, review
First published: "Subterranean" magazine, Fall 2007.
Rating: B

Neal Asher's "Alien Archaeology" (novella, science fiction): A criminal is hunted & punished

Basic plot of this novella is very simple & well hashed: a criminal robs a man of something valuable & nearly kills him in the process; victim goes after the criminal & eventually brings him to justice.

Since this is sf, things need to be a little more complex. So, the valuable stolen is not something easily understood like diamonds, money, or important papers. And chase involves spaceships & many planets & aliens!

Unfortunately, the story is far beyond the typical complexity. There are aliens, Neuromancer style & variety of cyborg gadgets/body modifications/AIs, & many more decorations. I didn't get very bored while reading it, but it's kind of read-and-forget story.

Story summary.

Once upon a time, there were many sentient races on many worlds. One of them did something that would have destroyed all technological societies of all sentients.

To escape, one of these races - Atheter - decides to go non-sentient! I didn't quite catch the details of how they cleaned their minds, but today you have bear-like animals called "gabbleducks" that are actually Atheter. In fact, there is exactly one gabbleduck now surviving, on one of the deserted worlds; he will play a role in the story.

In current time, humans & Prador are two races dominating the part of the space once occupied by these extinct aliens. Prador are bad, humans not so bad.

"Polity" is the human political entity spanning many worlds, & is presumably controlled from earth. Polity is ruled by AIs rather than humans! Both hero & criminal are from Polity; Pradors have a relatively small role in the story.

Rho Var Olssen was once a sharp shooter for Earth Central Security (ECS) - apparently, one of the security agencies of Polity. He now is the only person on a deserted world, & does archaeological digging for a company called Arcosect.

In his digging, Rho has found a valuable gadget called "(Atheter) memstore". This apparently holds the consciousness of Atheters - in the tradition of similar Neuromancer gadgets.

If someone can figure out a way of uploading the contents of memstore into gabbleduck, the current non-sentient avatar of Atheters, we will get a sentient Atheter! A priceless entity for collectors - made even more priceless by the fact that only one gabbleduck now lives on all worlds. This potential sentient Atheter is the valuable thing for which the crime is committed.

Jael Feogril, a woman & a hardened criminal, makes the mistake of robbing Rho of his precious memstore - nearly killing him in the process. Story is primarily of Rho chasing Jael down.

Jael makes a deal with Pradors - she will sell them a sentient Atheter. She makes some shady deals to acquire the sole gabbleduck. But is still faced with the problem - how to upload memstore into gabbleduck?

Enter "Penny Royal", a rogue AI! Jael strikes a deal with Penny Royal who will do the mating of memstore with gabbleduck.

In the end, mating goes wrong - destroying memstore contents. Gabbleduck remains an animal. Jael is dead. Rho recovers his precious, but now dead, memstore.

Collected in.

1. Gardner Dozois (Ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

"Alien Archaeology", short story, review
First published: Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2007.
Rating: B

Cory Doctorow's "0wnz0red": Software to tone up your body!!

My first impression on reading this novelette was - "insane"! Even if it were made technologically feasible, no way I am going to trust software running on my Windows notebook for anything life critical.

It has been about 2 weeks since I read it, & it no longer appears as crazy - who knows if far off in future, it won't be possible.

The unspellable title is meant as programmer-speak. When troubleshooting or (less often) trying to understand, a program, programmers often edit, midway through the program run, some aspect of program's state via a piece of software called "debugger". Many of these changes involve numbers - e.g., a code that means "enable a certain feature of command X". Programmers that learned their art before GUIs became popular often prefer hex numbers, an arcane looking representation of ordinary numbers that is a bridge between human way of thinking about numbers, & that of computers.

While I don't recognize the specific character sequence used in title, & it's not a hex number, the spirit appears to be the same. Forcibly edit some aspect of system state through means not available in normal user interface. It also reads like "zeroed" - which often means "set the system's state to default" or "to forget the current state".

The story involves software running on ordinary PCs that can edit the state of your brain, e.g., to make the body burn fat!!

There is a separate thread early in the story explaining technicalities of IT industry's efforts to build a "foolproof" copy-prevention system to appease Hollywood.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

Two friends - Liam & Murray Swain. They both work as programmers for Global Semiconductor, Mountain View, CA, USA. They have also worked on military contracts in the past for the same firm.

Liam is very sick - in a vegetable state at some hospital. Murray goes into depression, loses touch, begins losing interest in job, ... Everyone at office comes to believe Liam is dead.

One fine day, Murray finds Liam near his car at office parking lot. Alive & very healthy! How did the miracle happen?

Looks like military have found a way of directly interfacing the human brainstem to a PC, & taking over the vital bodily functions performed there via software running on external PC!!! "we give you a bug. It's a controlled mutagen that prepares your brainstem so that it can emit and receive weak electromagnetic fields that can be manipulated with an external microcontroller... There's no surgery involved. The interface regulates immunoresponse in the region ... to prevent rejection. The controller has a serial connector that connects to a PC that instructs it in respect of the governance of most bodily functions."

Actually, there is at least one scene where the subject requires medical treatment of the region where the interface gear contacts body surface; but let's ignore the process of its implant - surgical vs simply worn as headphones.

Anyway, the effect is - for almost any injury, you no loner need surgery; just tell the body to heal itself! Ditto for pretty much anything - ask dying heart to regrow the tissue, regrow the tooth ready for root canal, tone up the muscles, burn body fat, ...! Never mind what happens when software or hardware misbehaves. In fact, no subject has survives the equipment to-date. Military apparently wants to built super-soldiers.

Liam, on his deathbed, is offered the treatment. He accepts, & sees a fellow patient die. Figures out a way of getting into the software, tinkers with it, & ends up healing himself in double quick time - without any help from hospital staff!

He steals the software source code, & hardware that connect his head to computer's data port. That is when he goes to meet his friend - a criminal on the run.

Liam has quietly infected his friend Murray with a a viral strain - in anticipation of tone up the the friend, but without his permission!

He finds refuge in friend's home. There is some fight when Murray discovers his infection. But obvious & quick improvements to body render all arguments futile.

They both hack the software, fix bugs here & there, make additional interfacing hardware from easily available components by hacking the old one - so both friends have their separate head gear.

The plan is get out of the country & startup a company for this business. Who will not want to become a superman? Software, including source code, will be put on the internet for free - so military cannot put the genie back in the bottle. They will be making the head gear, probably bundled with their build of software.

Only they get caught by authorities before escape. Liam breaks down, & will work for military. Murray refuses, & is eventually released. In the end, we see him stealthily moving out of country to do the startup.

Fact sheet.

"0wnz0red", short story, review
First published: salon.com, 28 August 2002.
Rating: A
Nominated for Nebula Award 2003 in novelette category.

William Gibson's "Neuromancer" (novel): A world of cyborgs

I actually dropped this when I was may be one-fifth through - too much jargon, half sentences, & expectations of cultural familiarity with his world.

Even through this part, it is obvious this is a very influential book - going by number of authors that have imitated its plot elements. May be some day I will have courage & patience to return & finish!

Story so far is of a human cyborg, who is a computer hacker, & whose life was wrecked by his employer because he stole something. This was done by biologically changing him in a way that renders him incompetent to do his computer job. Employer apparently was some military organization - but I am not sure.

He is saved from footpath life by someone in position of power - for some job; benefactor also foots the medical bill to fix whatever was wrecked by old employer.

Then there is an AI which actually is controlling the benefactor - to ends that will likely become apparent later in story. Benefactor is also a cyborg.

AI apparently is working for a reclusive long lived family whose members periodically upload themselves to some computer archive - in the tradition of Arthur Clarke's "The City & the Stars" at a smaller scale.

Another major character is a female cyborg who becomes a bodyguard & lover of the wreck.

When reading it, I kept getting reminded of Hollywood movie Terminator.

Cyberspace & Matrix.
This story is often credited with the invention of these terms by the publishers.

As far as I can make out, & am not 100% sure, the meaning of the first term in the book is very different from the meaning we normally associate with it; later, of course, is not a common term at all. Definitions according to this story:

Matrix is what Windows applications refer to as "document", & application programmers refer to as "database".

Cyberspace is the immersive virtual reality interface of software applications; you interact with application via a device that directly plugs into your brain via a kind of head gear. Applications may be networked over wide geographical area. Note that internet already existed & was in widespread use in certain geeky communities when this book was written, though its widespread popularity among ordinary people via WWW was yet to happen. Also note that the term "cyber" has been around a long time - at least since the time of Norbert Weiner's book "Cybernetics".

Fact sheet.
Neuromancer, novel, review
First published: 1984
Rating: C
Winner of Hugo Award 1985 in novel category

Eric Donovan, the cyborg, in Larry Niven's stories

I am writing this piece because Eric seems to be much imitated in fiction; this separate article will let me link from relevant places.

Eric is not described in a single story; bits of him are described in the following stories:

1. "The Coldest Place"
2. "Becalmed in Hell"

Eric was a man. He once "tried to land a moonship without radar" & ended up pretty much dying. "There was nothing left of Eric then except the intact central nervous system, & no glands except the pituitary."

In the cyborg avatar, what exists of Eric is his "central nervous system, with the brain perched at the top and the spinal cord coiled in a loose spiral to fit more compactly into the transparent glass & sponge plastic housing. Hundreds of wires from all over the ship led to the glass walls, where they were joined to selected nerves which spread like an electrical network from the central coil of nervous tissue and fatty protective membrane."

These linkages, through prosthetic devices, also include his speech & hearing devices. In fact, he keeps getting rehooked to new ships as new models come into being - which requires some amount of learning on his part.

"Eric never sleeps normally, since his blood doesn't accumulate fatigue poisons, and he'd go mad from being awake all the time if he didn't have a Russian sleep inducer plate near his cortex."

Larry Niven's "Becalmed in Hell": An accident on Venus

Story summary.
Narrator Howie & cyborg Eric Donovan make the entire crew of a team exploring the thick atmosphere of Venus.

They need 3 kinds of propulsion to get back to earth: a pair of ramjets to go to a certain height where atmosphere is thin enough to use rockets; rockets take them to "atomic ion engine" that will take the ship back home to earth.

Deep in atmosphere, Eric loses control of ramjets. They are hooked directly into his nervous system, as is much of the rest of the ship. He can no longer feel ramjets - it's a kind of paralysis.

Tests cannot locate the fault. They go all the way down to surface where Howie goes out to check some connections, but air pressure is too high. They rise a bit, & Howie goes out again to physically pour ice on some electronics accessible only from outside. No luck.

Eventually, Howie presents a hypothesis: "I think you've got a case of what used to be called trigger anesthesia. A soldier who kills too often sometimes finds that his right index finger or even his whole hand has gone numb, as if it were no longer a part of him... Subconsciously you've stopped believing that the rams can feel like a part of you, which they were designed to do. So you've persuaded yourself that you don't feel anything."

Eric doesn't see it that way, but agrees to think it over. Later, he can intermittently feel ramjets, & is able to get them high enough up after some drama.

Real cause of loss of sensation will be revealed only near end of the story - after they land at earth, & experts can examine the problem.

Fact sheet.
Becalmed in Hell, short story, review
First published: F&SF, July 1965
Rating: B
Series: "The Coldest Place" (B), "Becalmed in Hell".

Larry Niven's "The Coldest Place": Niven's first published story

Technical aspects of the story are dated, but it's a generally readable tale.

I did not know that it was once thought that a place on Mercury was the coldest in solar system; in fact, "it doesn't get colder than this even between the stars"! Story is based on the knowledge that Mercury always shows the same face to Sun, & there are places on the dark side that are this cold.

Story summary.
Narrator has gone to Mercury with Eric to look for native life forms, based on pictures from a previous mission. They ultimately catch one - a huge amoeba shaped blob made primarily of "Helium II". But aren't quite clear till end if it is alive:

"It's only helium!"
"Helium II. That's all our monsters are."
"Check them for contaminants."
"For what?"
"Contaminants. My body is hydrogen oxide with contaminants. If the contaminants in the helium are complex enough, it might be alive."
"There are plenty of other substances".

Trivia.

1. This story employs a device that is now rather popular in modern fiction - nervous system of a human integrated into the space ship: "In all directions from his spinal cord and brain, connected at the walls of the intricately shaped glass and soft plastic vessel which housed him, Eric's nerves reached out to master the ship." See, e.g., Peter Watts' "Blindsight" for a simpler version.

Fact sheet.
The Coldest Place, short story, review
First published: If, December 1964
Rating: B
Series: "The Coldest Place", "Becalmed in Hell" (B).

Marc Schultz's "Practicing My Sad Face": Moving & plausible, if not original

It managed to evoke strong emotions near end, in spite of tired plot. And it's understandable, unlike much recent fiction from Strange Horizons that just went over my head.

On the negative side, nothing about the plot is original. And there is way too much jargon for my taste.

Full text of the story is available online.

Story summary.
Billy, the narrator, is the sole survivor of a terrorist strike, & is recuperating in a hospital. He has had his face patched up by plastic surgeons, & his eyes & ears are replaced with bionic implants. There is also much damage to brain - some implants have been fitted, but much of his old memory is gone. And he now behaves like a little child.

Story begins with loving care he is receiving from Dr Janice Anderson, & his live-in girlfriend, Joyce Farley. Until Joyce cannot take it anymore, & decides to part ways. Now she is coming for a last visit to announce breakup, & Dr Anderson wants Billy to practice sad expressions on his face & use them during Joyce's visit - so he won't be grinning when Joyce announces the parting.

End is another terrorist bombing on train bringing Joyce; tracks run near hospital. While hospital staff is busy attending to victims, Billy also goes out to accident side alone - with just a 50 minutes battery for his implants. He describes the gory scenes.

We are not told the final fate, but I presume he dies in innocence at accident side when battery runs out, while Joyce died in this second attack.

Fact sheet.
Practicing My Sad Face, short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 27 August 2007
Rating: B

Peter Watts' "Blindsight" (novel, science fiction): Second rate first-contact story

A stranger knocks at your door. What do you you do? You hit him with a rod - because he might be hostile! That, in a nutshell, is the message of this story!

I have an instinctive dislike of stories & people who use too much techno-babble. With rare exceptions, experience says they usually have no clue to what they are talking about. I did not really count, but I think about two-thirds of all sentences in this book contain jargon!

I have a third reason to dislike this book. "Gutter language" is the term we use in India for describing the language used in this book. I am aware different countries & communities have different tolerances - so your mileage on this count might differ from mine.

The only reason I read the whole book was its publicity & claims that it provides new insights into first contact possibilities. It doesn't.

In fact, author gives a cue - in a different context - that also applies to interpretation of this book: "something has coded nonsense in a way that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. The signal is a virus. Viruses do not arise from kin, symbionts, or other allies. The signal is an attack."

Title of the story comes from a form of hallucination where your mind says you are seeing something, but your eye is not really seeing the thing. This is an effect some human adventurers in the story experience.
Note: Aug 4, 2007: I guess I did not quite get the meaning of "blindsight" right. Comments #1 & #2 below clarify. Sorry. And my thanks to commentators.

In spite of all the negatives, there are some observations in the story that made me ponder. I collect them here.

This book is available both in paper form, & as a web download.

Story summary.
Feb 13, 2082. Earth received an easily visible & extensive meteor shower. Event got dubbed Fireflies - sometimes shortened to Flies. Investigations reveal they mostly consisted of iron.

We are later told they were actually 65,536 probes of alien origin. They took scientific measurements & then burned up in atmosphere. They formed a pattern in the skies, & said something - though no one knew what.

We are not told how, but those in authority have figured out a long period comet as a possible alien target. So a ship is made in record 18 months, & a crew is assembled to make first contact.

Now this crew cast is curious, to put it mildly:

1. Siri Keeton aka Cygnus, the narrator. He had half his brain removed surgically when he was a child - to cure "some kind of viral epilepsy". He is now a "freelance synthesist" - a job described as someone who explains "the Incomprehensible to the Indifferent", or someone who bridges "the gap between the people who make the breakthroughs and the people who take the credit for them". Most crew mates think of him as a spy of Mission Control on earth, though they generally tolerate him. He is an expert at reading body language, & also has some telepathic ability.

2. Jukka Sarasti - commander of the mission, & an - hold your breath - authentic vampire! Genetically engineered. Since he is by nature a predator, we are told he is far smarter than us. In particular, he can simultaneously look at a problem from multiple perspectives. He also likes violence, though he controls it well - for the most part, at least, where humans are concerned; but not where aliens are concerned. He also directly interfaces with the ship - his brain can be directly connected to an interface port on ship via a cable (I could not understand how his end plugs into his head).

3. Susan James - a woman with 4 independent personalities, each really a different person. I didn't quite catch how this was achieved. She is the communications expert; different personalities will presumably come in handy when talking to aliens about whom we know nothing.

4. Major Amanda Bates - the fighter. She commands an impressive armory & a contingent of fighter robots. Just to be prepared, if violence becomes necessary.

5. Isaac Szpindel - some kind of a medical expert. Not only is he available for any medical contingencies for the crew, he is supposed to be able to study the alien life. Assuming they will present themselves for dissection! He is very good at using prosthetic extensions of his senses.

6. Robert Cunningham - a standby for Isaac Szpindel.

There are three more unnamed crew member who remains in stasis all through the story. For a total of 9 member crew.

The ship they will be traveling in is called Theseus. This is a very competent & smart ship. Ship can also increase its size, & can assemble pretty much anything by collecting material from interplanetary space. Ship is so smart, everyone refers to it as the Captain.

They travel in stasis - hibernation - "sleep apnea". Because it's a long journey.

When the narrator wakes up, he realizes he has overslept by 5 years! And he is not where he should be in space. Apparently, somewhere beyond Neptune, the ship received signals from a bearing that confused it; current chase began after ship sought clarifications from earth & tracked the source.

They are now somewhere in Kuiper belt - chasing this object "200 km diameter" & "transmitting to a target not familiar to Man."

This target is dubbed Burns-Caulfield. I have an impression Theseus is one of the 3 human ships out to investigate it - not sure. Anyway, Our guys sneak up to it, & find that it is a comet - with an ice covering & some kind of structure underneath. As soon as Theseus turns its radar on it, it goes momentarily blind. When it recovers, Burns-Caulfield has vanished!

Through arguments I did not follow, it is concluded that Burns-Caulfield was an alien decoy to mislead humans. Their real ship is elsewhere. And decoy has been discovered before aliens wanted discovery.

OK - so our friends head for the real thing. I am not clear how they found the new target location - probably by tracking direction of Burns-Caulfield's radio transmissions (without coming in the radio field!). Anyway, after another long journey, they see a supermassive gas giant in the outer reaches of the solar system - 7 light months from earth; they dub it "Big Ben" or Ben. Ben weighs "over ten Jupiters" & is "measured twenty percent wider at the belly". We are told Ben is "a dismembered remnant of some long-lost galaxy that had drifted into ours and ended up as road kill, uncounted billions of years ago ... something from outside the Milky Way"!

They go in orbit around it, & observe curious things. Looks like somebody is using Ben as an agricultural field - growing things - seeding, harvesting, etc. Again, I was at a loss to follow arguments leading to this conclusion.

Then they accidentally detect something even more curious - a dark object orbiting Ben with a 40 hour period - "almost low enough to graze the atmosphere". It's a 30 km wide, hiding itself from human ship, & tracking human ship - I could not follow how humans determined it was tracking them.

As soon as the object figures it has been detected, it begins communicating in English. Our friends talk. Just hello, & trivialities. Dark object identifies itself as Rorschach, & humans determine it is some kind of a ship. They also observe that it is growing.

After a while, humans figure it is a "Chinese Room" - an entity that appears to carry out an apparently reasonable conversation without the least idea of what it is talking about! This is where humans figure they can do some violent & forced investigation.

Hence begins the tale of forced human landing on alien ship, in spite of their warnings to the contrary. Over several landings (using the shuttle Scylla), humans cut through alien ship's hull at more than one places, face some hallucinations & injuries inside ship, kill some creatures inside, & kidnap two for investigation! These alien creatures are dubbed "Scramblers".

Kidnapped ones, dubbed Stretch & Clench, are put in cages, & treated to all kinds of abuse. But extreme comes when the humans want to figure out a way of communicating with aliens. Reminded me of laboratory animals. Use torture to make them learn! Here is the enlightenment:

"Start with two beings ... that ... know how to talk among themselves.

Separate them. Let them see each other... Let them practice the art of conversation in their own chosen way...

Hurt them...

when you discover just the right stimulus, the optimum balance between pain and injury, you must inflict it without the remorse...

give one of your subjects the means to end the pain, but give the other the information required to use it. To one you might present a single shape, while showing the other a whole selection. The pain will stop when the being with the menu chooses the item its partner has seen...

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you
hurt it, and keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech
from the screams."

Hence begins the Inquisition to learn their competence (way beyond humans) & their way of talking that ultimately results in the death of both subjects!

Naturally there is a reaction from alien ship. End is escape of a live Siri & a dead Jukka in a shuttle Charybdis towards earth. All other occupants of both Theseus & Rorschach die, along with destruction of both ships.

Fact sheet.
"Blindsight", novel, review
Rating: C
First published: October 2006
Nominated for Hugo Award 2007 in novel category.

See also.

1. Eric Donovan in Larry Niven's stories is a cyborg much more deeply integrated with the spaceship via prosthetic aids, when compared with Jukka Sarasti or Isaac Szpindel.
2. An alternative & non-violent way of learning the language to communicate with very cooperative aliens is found in Ted Chiang's "Story Of Your Life".