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Two Variations On Default Salvation

by Andy Dibble

Suppose your theology of salvation is that only those who deny Christ are damned. Everyone else is saved by default. This is an attractive view. Children and others unable to grasp doctrine are saved. Those who live without opportunity to accept Jesus as their savior are saved as well. The damned are damned, on some level, because they choose to be. God wisely grants them autonomy.

This complicates Original Sin, but there is a more pressing problem: assuming this theology, why did Jesus have a ministry?

#

I. Default Salvation Beginning with Creation

In the beginning was just the Father–my Father–and me. Heaven was just this lonesome twosomeness. He and I eternally begotten from Him. Succession in eternity is strange, but that is how it was. The angels came later. Creation came later still, and with it the Spirit, once there was a Creation to work within.

As long as there were humans, Creation has surged into Heaven: people die, and they end up here. I can’t blame them. It’s just the natural progression of their lives and after-lives. They would have lived forever in Eden–marvelous, almost divine–but the Serpent came and led them astray. He knew Father, knew me, better than I like to admit. He knew that Father would put them out, and they would end up in Heaven instead. He knew the human migration to Heaven would irk me.

The Fall changed much: Eden was bountiful. Once outside Eden, they had to till the ground. Children would have arisen painlessly in Eden, but outside pregnancy is like a disease. Outside there is disease. Outside their lives are brutish, short, and stunted.

But not their after-lives. Here they just go on and on. The trespass in Eden gave them a troubling handful of decades, but no more. For Father exalts them just because they have not denied me. What kind of reason is that? On earth, they did not even know me.

And that is why Heaven is neither a lonesome or a twosome place any longer. It’s infested (or so I tell myself in the shadow of my heart). I can hardly walk without stumbling over their prostrate bodies. They want to worship me, to serve me, to bask in my presence. The longer they stay, the more entitled they presume themselves to be! It is hard to host billions for billions of years.

No, for eternity.

I just want to be alone, alone with myself, alone with Father. 

Heaven is vast, wider and deeper than the sphere to which the stars are fixed. And if, somehow, souls filled Heaven to its silver rim, Father would make it swell. But even if I tread to the Outer Dark or to the Throne of Heaven where no created thing may pass, I can still feel them yearning for me. Omniscience doesn’t have an off-switch.

This is the end and goal of Creation? It is not the kind of fellowship I crave.

I look down at the few rude blasphemers–certain worshipers of Baal, some geometers and contemplatives, a few peripatetics of the hanging gardens–that struck upon my name in prophecy and dismissed what they had heard. Some are proud, others piteous, as they squander their mortal years or circle the scalding sands of Hell. I know deep down they deserve damnation, even crave it. But still I watch them like a human voyeur. They are few and therefore precious. They have accomplished something I could never do.

Shouldn’t those exalted be few and precious, souls deserving of Heaven?

But how to achieve this? I cannot overrule Father. I cannot correct Him. This presumption of salvation has a place in His Plan.

But I could walk upon the earth and divide the wheat from the chaff by my own preaching. Who will I go among? The Jews, the Chosen People. Their faithfulness ought to be tested. But not them only. I will spread my message to the nations and across the ages. Let all humanity be tested!

I was born. I grew, prospered, preached. But I did not speak plainly. I spoke in parables, bamboozling tripe. I spoke of bridesmaids, wicked servants, sowers, and mustard seeds. So that as many as possible could be exposed to my vagaries, and only a few receive my meaning with gladness, I proclaimed, “Whoever has ears, let them hear!” but, as Mark and Luke record, I told my disciples in secret: “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything comes in parables so that they may always see but never perceive, and always hear but never understand. Otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!”

#

II. Default Salvation Beginning with the Cross

Father and His majesty are wonderful, but fellowship with humans–real fellowship, fellowship they can reciprocate–would be more wonderful still.

Time and time again, I’ve seen them try to pick themselves up, and some have. Some were good, better than I thought a sinful human could be in one brief life. But no matter how upright these few stood, no matter how I marveled upon their grit, they still fell short (for all fall short of the glory of God). The suffering of each soul in Hell pains me, however just their lot might be, but the suffering of these upright few pains me most of all.

Some were saved: Isaiah when the burning coal touched his lips, Elijah when he rode to heaven in a whirlwind and a flaming chariot, and Moses wicked up from the grave. But there isn’t a woman among them, and they’re a stodgy lot. Being the mouthpiece of God leaves a person little room to be much of himself. I want the company of those men and women toiling below that have managed something great and good by their own will and not by the indwelling of God only.

What could I do? The expiation of sin requires sacrifice, but no dove or bull will wipe away the sin of a race. If by some grand transubstantiation the oceans became blood and the planets an altar, that would not be enough. It would not be vast enough. It would not be pure enough.

But I am vast enough, pure enough. I am great enough for it. I can walk the earth. I can reconcile Creation to Heaven and save the human race.

Humbly, I was born, and I learned how warm a body can be. I spread my message. I preached with zeal and laid my hands upon them and saved them by their faith. There were many, and I loved them, loved them all. And so I told my disciples as Matthew records: “This is why I speak to them in parables, ‘though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.'”

My quotation was from Isaiah. I invoked him to demonstrate the hard-heartedness of the people. But I could pierce their hearts of stone. If I spoke dry theology or fiery exhortation, I would only confuse or provoke them. But a story could stir their faith, a story thrown beside life, a parable.

I inspired many, and they loved me as I loved them. But at last the world overcame me, as it overcomes all bodies. I was beaten, sentenced, and hung upon a cross. They killed me, but really the Serpent killed me. He broke a pact sealed at the moment of creation: only those subject to sin are subject to death. But I am not subject to sin. My blood did what sanguine oceans and planetary altars could not.

With my blood the world was saved. Those great men and women were saved, the children and infants too young to know me, the multitudes that never had a chance. All are saved. With my blood, it is only those that deny me that fall away. Father lets them be.

I commissioned my disciples to preach to the nations, and I commissioned the next generation to preach after my disciples are gone. I commissioned all who would take up the mission. I swore I would be with them always, to the end of the age. At last, I ascended, content I had saved as many as could be saved.

But later, in the quiet of my heart, I wondered: Wouldn’t it have been better for me to be crucified in secret? Lure the Serpent in, if need be, but commission nothing–no Church, no missionaries, no scripture. Tell no one I am the Messiah. Maybe even conceal my death by silencing everyone involved.

It is ruthless, but whenever my well-meaning followers preach my message, an audience may hear and reject it. Those that hear and accept are better, for they may live Christian lives, but what matters earthly life, the merest sliver of eternity? And even they have the chance to fall away. They may reject me later on.

What rogue angel was it that told Joseph to name me Jesus? Once heard, my name is an infection a person must guard against all their lives.

To pronounce my name is to acknowledge salvation. But my name has an inner meaning, like a parable: to acknowledge that one may, one day, be damned.

In my gallant zeal, I saved many, but I damned many too.

~

Bio:

Andy Dibble is a healthcare IT consultant who believes that play is the highest function of theology. His fiction also appears in Writers of the Future and is forthcoming in Speculative North. You can find him at andydibble.com.

The International Bibliography of Fictional Non-Fiction

An evolving reference list of fictional non-fiction
(FNF, also known as speculative documentary fiction),
mainly in English and Romance languages, since the 19th century.

Compilation by Mariano Martín Rodríguez

Note: The present document, last updated in December 2020, is subject to further expansion. It currently covers mainly English and Romance languages. Readers are encouraged to suggest additional works for inclusion.

Fictions of Non-Fiction: An Overview of Factual Discursive Genres in Science Fiction.

‘Fictional non-fiction’ designates fictional texts written as if they were factual accounts. In science fiction, the rhetoric of “factual” scientific discourse has been widely applied to confer to its fictional texts an appearance of scientific rationality and factuality. This kind of scientific “fictional non-fiction” encompasses fantastic works which methodically and consistently present the standard rhetorical features of real-world scientific discourses and practice. Their literariness is achieved mostly through the fictionalisation of the content, while their language adheres closely to the highly formalised, uniform, descriptive and seemingly objective style common in natural, formal or social sciences in modern times. Each science, however, usually has its own jargon and distinct discourse, which is reflected in ‘fictional non-fiction’. Among these discourses, some have been relatively popular in (science) fiction. The formal sciences have inspired, for example, imaginary languages, such as Orwell’s Newspeak. The natural sciences have been exploited through fictional spoof papers, such as Asimov’s ‘thiotimoline’ surveys. Regarding the human sciences, historiographical writing has been applied to imaginary histories (e.g, Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come). Actual ethnographic accounts have offered a model for world-building in the descriptive mode (Borges, etc.) whereas the discourse of philology has served to underpin the mock factuality of fantastic books (Lovecraft’s Necronomicon). A text conflating the concepts and rhetoric of these three main types of science using the framework of a model scientific paper is Le Guin’s “‘The Author of the Acacia Seeds’ and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics.” This is a significant piece of “science fiction,” both for its “fictional” contents and its “scientific” rhetoric, illustrating the value of ‘fictional non-fiction’ as a set of formal genres specially linked to science fiction, past and present.

[]: collections of stand-alone texts.

//: It separates different works by the same author.

/: It separates different versions of the same work.

Underlined works: read works.

Unless otherwise specified, even unread works have been verified regarding their genre.

FICTIONAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

Historiography as Fiction, Fiction as History: An Overview of the Use of Historiographical Discourse to Narrate Possible Futures since the 19th Century.

The double dimension —documentary and artistic—– of historiographical writing has been virtually overshadowed by the emphasis on the scientific nature of the discipline and its subsequent exclusion from the literary canon from the nineteenth century onwards. Fictional or imaginary history then appeared as a way to safeguard the literariness of history as a formal genre, using the rhetorical discourse of historiography to achieve an effect of historicity in texts that often have a satirical or cautionary intent. Nevertheless, most of them convey, first of all, considerations on the evolution of humanity and on its history as seen from a future perspective: in this kind of prospective historiography, future historians addressing their contemporary readership narrate their past history, which is our future one. By eschewing the narrative form of the novel and adopting instead that of historiography, these writers also broaden the temporality of historical consciousness: future events become as actual as any past ones, and they are surveyed following the historical method, with their fictionality hidden under the cloak of factual discourse. Moreover, the historical laws posited by the authors are shown in action in the future as well. Fictional historiography is not only literature, but also history —prospective history. Examples of this genre are relatively abundant in modern literatures. As literary products, most of them follow a similar writing method: the one prevalent in historiography of the age when they were produced. As historical reflections, they usually have widely different approaches on the future course of humankind and on the forces that drive it along historical time, from past to future.

*: not verified.

PROSPECTIVE OR FUTURE HISTORY

– Kylas Chunder DUTT (1817-?), “A Journal of Forty-Eight Hours of the Year 1945” (1835).

– Shoshee Chunder DUTT (1824-1886), “The Republic of Orissá: A Page from the Annals of the Twentieth Century” (1845), in [Bengaliana: A Dish of Rice and Curry, and Other Indigestible Ingredients] (1877).

History of the Sudden and Terrible Invasion of England by the French in the Month of May, 1852 (1851).

– *Imaginary History of the Next Thirty Years (1857).

– Frederick GALE, The History of the British Revolution of 1867 (1867).

– Abraham HAYWARD (1801-1884), “The Second Armada” (1871).

– Motly Ranke McCAULEY, *Chapters from Future History: The Battle of Berlin (1871).

– P. [Pierton] W. DOONER (1844-1907?), Last Days of the Republic (1880).

– Lorelle, *“The Battle of Wabash” (1880).

– William Delisle HAY, Three Hundred Years Hence (1881).

– Lang Tung, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1881).

The Re-Conquest of Ireland, A.D. 1895 (1881).

– Robert WOLTOR, A Short and Truthful History of the Taking of California and Oregon by the Chinese in the Year A.D. 1899 (1882).

– Ralph Centennius, The Dominion in 1983 (1883).

The Battle of the Moy; or, How Ireland Gained Her Independence, 1892-1894 (1883).

– Arthur Montagu BROOKFIELD (1853-1940), Simiocracy (1884).

– Posteritas, The Siege of London (1884).

– Henry Stanely COVERDALE, The Fall of the Great Republic (1886-88) (1885)

– William Laird CLOWES (1856-1905), and Commander C. N. ROBINSON, The Great Naval War of 1887: an Account of an Imaginary Engagement (1886).

– E. W. (Elizabeth WATERHOUSE, 1834-1918), The Island of Anarchy: A Fragment of History in the 20th Century (1887).

– Samuel BARTON, The Battle of the Swash and the Capture of Canada (1888).

– Ambrose BIERCE (1842-¿1914?), “The Fall of the Republic: An Article from a “Court Journal” of the Thirty-First Century” (1888) / “The Ashes of the Beacon: An Historical Monograph Written in 4930” (1905).

– Frank Richard STOCKTON (1834-1902), The Great War Syndicate (1889).

– Hugh Grattan DONNELLY (1850-1931), The Stricken Nation (1890).

– Alexander DUNBAR, “Scottish Home Rule” (1890).

– A. Nelson SEAFORTH (Philip Howard Colomb, 1831-1899), The Last Great Naval War (1891) // et al., The Great War of 189- (1893).

– William Ward CRANE, “The Year 1899” (1893).

– Sydney EARDLEY-WILMOT (1847-1929), The Next Naval War (1894).

– Henry LAZARUS, The English Revolution of the Twentieth Century (1894).

– Clarendon MACAULAY (Walter Marsham Adams, 1838-), *The Carving of Turkey: A Chapter of European History from Sources Hitherto Unpublished (1894).

– John Henry PALMER, The Invasion of New York, or, How Hawaii Was Annexed (1897).

– Frederick Upham ADAMS (1859-1921), President John Smith (1897).

– A Diplomat, The Rise and Fall of the United States (1898).

– Charles GLEIG (1862-), When All Men Starve (1898).

– H. [Henry] PEREIRA-MENDES (1857-1937), Looking Ahead (1899).

– Arthur BIRD, Looking Forward (1899).

– Mark TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910), “History 1,000 Years from Now” [1901], in [Fables of Man] (1972).

– C. [Charles] W. [William] WOOLDRIDGE (1847-1908), Perfecting the Earth (1902).

– Elliot Evan MILL, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1905).

– William LE QUEUX (1864-1927) (con H. [Herbert] W. [Wrigley] WILSON, 1866-1940), The Invasion of 1910 (1906).

– Patrick VAUX, Lionel YEXLEY, *When the Eagle Flies Seaward (1907).

– Marsden MANSON (1850-1931), The Yellow Peril in Action (1907).

– Henry Dwight SEDGWICK (1861-1957), “The Coup d’État of 1961” (1908).

– Jack LONDON (John London, 1876-1916), “Goliah”, in [Revolution and Other Essays] (1910) // “The Unparalleled Invasion” (1910), in [The Strength of the Strong] (1911).

– Ronald A. KNOX (1888-1957), “The New Sin” (1920), in [Essays in Satire] (1928).

– Hamilton CRAIG, *A Hazard at Hansard: The Speech from the Throne, Ottawa, Fourth August, 2014 (1925).

– H. [Hector] C. [Charles] BYWATER (1884-1940), The Great Pacific War (1925).

– J. [John] B. [Burdon] S. [Sanderson] HALDANE (1892-1964), “The Last Judgment”, in [Possible Worlds] (1927).

– Olaf STAPLEDON (1886-1950), Last and First Men (1930) // Darkness and the Light (1942).

– L. [Leopold] S. [Stanley] AMERY (1873-1955), “The Era of the Press Cæsars” (1931), in [The Stranger of the Ulysses] (1934).

– H. [Herbert] G. [George] WELLS (1866-1946), The Shape of Things to Come (1933).

– Laurence MANNING (1899-1972), “The Living Galaxy” (1934).

– Arthur KEPPEL-JONES (1909-1996), When Smuts Goes (1947).

– George Bernard SHAW (1856-1950), “Fourth Fable”, in [Farfetched Fables] (1950).

– William TENN (Philip Klass, 1920-2010), “Null-P” (1951), in [The Wooden Star] (1968).

– Anthony BOUCHER (1911-1968), “The Ambassadors” (1952).

– Lion MULLER, “The Available Data on the Worp Reaction” (1953).

– John ATKINS (1916-2009), Tomorrow Revealed (1955).

– R. [Reginald] C. [Charles] CHURCHILL (1916-), A Short History of the Future (1955).

– Fredric BROWN (1906-1972), “Expedition” (1957), “Great Lost Discoveries”, in [Nightmares and Geezenstacks] (1962).

– Michael YOUNG (1915-2002), The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958).

– Bertrand RUSSELL (1872-1970), “Eisenhower’s Nightmare: The McCarthy-Malenkov Pact”, in [Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories] (1954) // “Planetary Effulgence” (1959), “The Misfortune of Being Out of Date”, in [Parables] (1962).

– Edgar PANGBORN (1909-1976), “The Good Neighbors” (1960), in [Good Neighbors and Other Strangers] (1972).

– Leo SZILARD (1898-1964), “The Voice of the Dolphins”, in [The Voice of the Dolphins] (1961).

– Garry ALLIGHAM (1895-1977), Verwoerd – The End (1961).

– Monsanto INC, “The Desolate Year” (1962).

– Ian DRUMMOND, “The Great Gold Crisis of 2018: The Gold Goes Ouest” (1970).

– William THOMPSON, “2020 Hindsight” (1970).

– William NICHOLS, “Canada – World Melting Pot” (1970).

– Gregory BAUM, “A New Renaissance?” (1970).

– Leonard SHIFRIN, “The Withering Away of Welfare” (1970).

– Philip WYLIE (1902-1971), “Selections from 1975: Date of No Return”, in The End of the Dream (1972).

– J. [James] G. [Graham] BALLARD (1930-2009), “The Greatest Television Show on Earth” (1972), “The Life and Death of God” (1976), “The Largest Theme Park in the World” (1989), “The Message from Mars” (1992), in [The Complete Short Stories] (2001).

– T. [Thomas] L. SHERRED (1915-1985), “Bounty” (1972).

– Stan GOLDSTEIN; Fred GOLDSTEIN, Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology 1980-2188 (1980).

– John HACKETT (1910-1997), The Third World War (1978) / The Third World War: The Untold Story (1982).

– Christopher CHERNIAK, “The Riddle of the Universe and Its Solution” (1978).

– John BRADLEY, The Illustrated History of War World Three (1982).

– Margaret ATWOOD (1939-), “Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale”, in The Handmaid’s Tale (1985).

– Brian STABLEFORD (1948-); David LANGFORD (1953-), The Third Millennium: A History of the World AD 2000-3000 (1985).

– Bruce STERLING (1954-), “Our Neural Chernobyl” (1988), in [Globalhead] (1992).

– W. [Walter] Warren WAGAR (1932-2004), A Short History of the Future (1989/1992/1999).

– Ton BARNARD (Deon GELDENHUYS), South Africa 1994-2004 (1991).

– Denise OKUDA, Michael OKUDA, Star Trek Chronology (1993).

– Ted CHIANG (1967-), “The Evolution of Human Science” (2000), in [Stories of Your Life and Others] (2002).

– Daniel WALLACE, Kevin J. ANDERSON (1962-), Star Wars: The Essential Chronology / Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology (2000/2005).

– Gregory BENFORD (1941-), “Applied Mathematical Theology” (2006), in [Anomalies] (2012).

– James KRASKA, “How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015” (2010).

– Naomi ORESKES (1958-); Erik M. CONWAY (1965-), The Collapse of Western Civilization (2014).

– Berilo NEVES (1899-1974), “O divórcio de Adão e Eva”, “A derrota de Marte”, in [A Mulher e o Diabo] (1931).

– Antônio GOMES NETO (1904-1937), “O país que ninguém sonhou”, in [A Vida Eterna] (1932).

– António de MACEDO (1931-2017), “As baratas morrem de costas” (1999), in [O Cipreste Apaixonado] (2000).

– Arturo LEZCANO (1939-), “Utopia” (1991), in [Os dados de Deus] (1994).

– Nilo María FABRA (1843-1903), “El desastre de Inglaterra in 1910”, in [Por los espacios imaginarios (con escalas in la Tierra)] (1885) // “La guerra de España con los Estados Unidos”, in [Presente y futuro] (1897) // “La Yankeelandia. Geografía e Historia en el siglo XXIV” (1898).

– Justo S. [Sanjurjo] LÓPEZ DE GOMARA (1859-1923), “La ciudad del siglo XXX”, in [Locuras humanas] (1886).

– Ignacio FOTHERINGHAM (1842-1925), Historia de lo que no ha sucedido. La guerra de 1895-96 (como I. Ache Effe, 1894).

– Manuel MONTERO Y RAPALLO (1845-1907), “La batalla naval de Manila” (1896).

– Pío BAROJA (1872-1956), “La república del año 8 y la intervención del año 12” (1903).

– Francisco NAVARRO LEDESMA (1869-1905), “Las muertes futuras: El hippoide” (1904) // “Heterobulia” (1905).

– Amado NERVO (Juan Crisóstomo RUIZ, 1870-1919), “La última guerra”, in [Almas que pasan] (1906).

– Domingo CIRICI VENTALLÓ (1876-1917); José ARRUFAT MESTRES, La república española en 191… (1911).

– Miguel de UNAMUNO (1864-1936), “¡Viva la introyección!”, in [El espejo de la muerte] (1913).

– Marcos Rafael BLANCO BELMONTE (1871-1936), “El ocaso de la Humanidad” (1918).

– Manuel CHAVES NOGALES (1897-1944), “El desastroso fin de la humanidad”, in [Narraciones maravillosas y biografías ejemplares de algunos grandes hombres humildes y desconocidos] (1920).

– Julio GARMENDIA (1898-1977), “Cuando pasen 3.000 años más…” (1923) // “La máquina de hacer ¡pu! ¡pu! ¡puuu!”, in [La hoja que no había caído en su otoño] (1979).

– Enrique MÉNDEZ CALZADA (1898-1940), “La sublevación de las máquinas”, “La isla del último borracho”, “Triste historia del papa Inocencio Veintinueve”, in [Abdicación de Jehová y otras patrañas] (1929).

– Pablo PALACIO (1906-1947), “Comentario del año 1957” (1932).

– Julio CORTÁZAR (1914-1984), “Los limpiadores de estrellas” [1942], in [La otra orilla] ([1945] 1995).

– Tomás BORRÁS (1891-1976), “Algo faltaba” (como Voracs Tamas), in [Antología de los Borrases] (1950).

– Antonio CASTRO LEAL (1896-1981), “Una historia del siglo XX” (1955), in [El laurel de San Lorenzo] (1959).

– Jorge CAMPOS (Jorge Renales Fernández, 1916-1983), “La otra luna” (1965), “La bomba del pequeño país” (1973), in [Bombas, astros y otras lejanías] (1992).

– Fernando QUIÑONES (1930-1998), “Un texto escolar sobre OH”, in [La guerra, el mar y otros excesos] (1966).

– Francisco GARCÍA PAVÓN (1919-1989), “El mundo transparente”, in [La guerra de los dos mil años] (1967).

– Ramón SIERRA [BUSTAMANTE] (1898-1988), Anales de la IV República Española (1967).

– Joaquín Esteban PERRUCA (1926-1989), “El deshielo”, “Los profetas”, in [Cuentos del último día] (1973).

– Rafael LLOPIS (1933-), “Ejercicio de un colegial del futuro” (1978).

– René AVILÉS FABILA (1940-2016), “Las gorgonas o del vanguardismo en el arte”, “Hacia el fin del mundo”, “Milagros televisados”, “Reportaje de un invento extraordinario o la decadencia de los EUA”, in [Hacia el fin del mundo] (1969) and [Fantasías en carrusel] (1978/1995/2001) // “Megalópolis”, in [Los oficios perdidos] (1983) and [Fantasías en carrusel] (1995/2001).

– J. [Juan] J. [José] BENÍTEZ (1946-), “Crónica de pasado mañana”, in [Sueños] (1982).

– Domingo SANTOS (Pedro Domingo Mutiñó, 1941-2018), “El síndrome de Lot”, in [No lejos de la Tierra] (1986).

– José FERRATER MORA (1912-1991), “Reivindicación de Babel” (1991).

– Nuria AMAT (1950-), “Nuevo mundo”, in [Monstruos] (1991).

– José CUERVO ÁLVAREZ (1962-), “Tercer milenio: multinacional, energía y migración” (1999).

– Antonio RODRÍGUEZ ALMODÓVAR (1941-), “Playas año 3000” (2002), in [Un país al sur] (2004).

– Carlos SÁIZ CIDONCHA (1939-2018), Historia del futuro (2004).

– Rafael L. BARDAJÍ, “Iberia 2040” (2005).

– Juan IBARRONDO (1962-), Retazos de la red (2005).

– Manuel VILAS (1962-), “Primer viaje a la fotosfera del Sol”, in [España] (2008).

– Rodolfo MARTÍNEZ (1965-), “Una cronología de Drímar”, in [Cabos sueltos] (2010).

– Juan Antonio FERNÁNDEZ MADRIGAL (1970-), “Cronología pre-Umma”, in Fragmentos de burbuja (2010).

– Andrés NEUMAN (1977-), “Fahrenheit.com” (2012).

– Marlon OCAMPO (1980-), “Crónicas del 2080”, in [El carnaval del diablo y otros cuentos] (2014).

– Rosa MONTERO (1951-), “Apéndice documental”, in El peso del corazón (2015).

– Rafel Vallès i Roderich (Frederic PUJULÀ I VALLÉS, 1877-1962), “La fi de la segona República española” (1904).

– Manuel de MONTOLIU (1877-1961), “Un somni” (1906).

– Nicolau M. RUBIÓ I TUDURÍ (1891-1981), “La gran sotragada”, in [Un crim abstracte o el jardiner assassinat] (1965).

– Ramon COMAS I MADUELL (1935-1978), “L’evaporació”, in [Rescat d’ambaixadors] (1970).

– Joan RENDE I MASDEU (1943-), “Notícia succinta d’assaig de fi del món”, in [Sumari d’homicida] (1978).

– Avel·lí ARTÍS-GENER (1912-2000), “Domesticació de la memòria” (1980), in [El boà taronja] (1986).

– Màrius SERRA (1963-), Amnèsia (1987).

– Víctor MORA (1931-2016), “L’estiu fatídic”, in [Barcelona 2080 i altres contes improbables] (1989).

– Joaquim CARBÓ (1932-), “Els caps de semana del futur” (1986), in [La calaixera dels contes] (1989).

– Òscar PÀMIES (1961-), “El sufragi versàtil”, in [Com serà la fi del món: Maneres que tindrà de presentar-se’ns i com preparar-s’hi anímicament] (1996).

– Joan-Francés BLANC (1961-), “Cronologia”, in Heisei (1999).

– Louis BAYLE (1907-1989), “La guerro dis oundo”, “L’enimo dis ome blanc”, in [Aièr e deman] (1970).

– Gustave NAQUET (1819-1886), L’Europe délivrée.– Histoire prophétique de 1871 à 1892 (1871).

– Gabriel TARDE (1843-1904), “Les Géants chauves” (1871/1892) // Fragment d’histoire future (1896).

– Samuel BURY, *Histoire de la prise de Berne et de l’annexion de la Suisse à l’Allemagne (1872).

– Charles CROS (1842-1888), “Un Drame interastral” (1872).

– Émile SECOND, Histoire de la décadence dun peuple (1872-1900) (1872).

– Edmond THIAUDIÈRE (1837-1930), *La dernière bataille (1873).

– Général La Mèche, La Guerre franco-allemande de 1878, en Belgique (1877).

– Ursus, “Précis de l’histoire de France par Duruy IV” (1880).

– Henri BOLAND, La Guerre prochaine entre la France et l’Allemagne (1881).

– Jules CAPRÉ (1847-1908), *Josias Biberon ou histoire des glorieuses campagnes de la 1ère division de l’armée fédérale suisse en l’an 3881 après Jésus-Christ (1881).

– Noël YAOUD, *La guerre de 1884 (1883).

– Charles ROPE, Rome et Berlin (1888).

– Michel ZÉVACO (1860-1918), *“Triomphe de la Révolution” (1890).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), “La Terreur future” (1890), in [Cœur double] (1891).

– Adrien PERRET (1869-1943), *“Comment la flotte allemande fut détruite par la flotte française en l’an 19…” (1891).

– Louis GALLET (1835-1898), “La mort de Paris” (1892).

– Camille FLAMMARION (1842-1925), La Fin du monde (1893).

– Maurice SPRONCK (1861-1921), L’An 330 de la République (1894).

– Tristan BERNARD (1866-1947), “Qu’est-ce qu’ils peuvent bien nous dire?” (1894), in [Contes de Pantruche et d’ailleurs] (1897).

– Jehan MAILLART, “Crépuscule”, in [Contes chimériques] (1895).

– Gaston de PAWLOWSKI (1874-1933), “Le désarmement” (1899/1901) // Voyage au pays de la quatrième dimension (1912/1923).

– Henri de NOUSANNE, *“La Guerre anglo-franco-russe” (1900).

– Edmond HARAUCOURT (1856-1941), “Les derniers hommes” (1900) // “Le conflit suprême” (1919).

– Victor FORBIN (1864-1947), “Le Déluge de glace” (1902).

– Édouard DUCOTÉ (1870-1929), “La Fête de la Paix”, in [En ce monde ou dans l’autre] (1903).

– Léon BAILLY (1867-1954), “Celui qui attend” (1905).

– Clément VAUTEL (1876-1954), * “La Fin de la Troisième République” (1905).

– François PAFIOU, “La Disparition du rouge” (1908).

– François PAFIOU, “La Disparition du rouge” (1908).

– Jules SAGERET (1861-1944), “La Race qui vaincra”, in [Paradis laïques] (1908).

– Émile POUGET (1860-1931); Émile PATAUD (1869-1935), Comment nous ferons la révolution (1909).

– Han RYNER (Henri Ner, 1861-1938), “Biographie de Victor Venturon” (1909).

– Olivier SAYLOR (Olivier-Eugène Jules Diraison, 1873-1916), “La fin du monde” (1910).

– Maurice SCHWOB (1858-1928), * “Les temps futurs”, in [Bagatelles] (1910).

– Alexandru MACEDONSKI (1854-1920), *“Oceania-Pacific-Dreadnought” (1911).

– Gaston de PAWLOWSKI (1874-1933), Voyage au pays de la quatrième dimension (1912/1923).

– Commandant de CIVRIEUX (Louis-Marie-Sylvain-Pierre LARREGUY DE CIVRIEUX), La Fin de l’empire d’Allemagne. La Bataille du ‘Champ des bouleaux’, 191… (Extrait d’un précis d’histoire édité en 193…) (1912).

– Octave BÉLIARD (1876-1951), “Orient contre Occident” (1914).

– Lucien DUBECH (1881-1940), “Anticipation ou le Sport adoucit les mœurs” (1924).

– Pierre ADORNIER (Lucien Job, 1885-1968), “La Mort du film”, in [Contes gris et roses] (1926).

– André MAUROIS (Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, 1885-1967), Le Chapitre suivant (1927) / [Deux Fragments d’une histoire universelle 1992] (1928) // “Fragments d’une histoire universelle publiée en 1992 par l’université de ***”, in [Relativisme] (1930) // [Le Chapitre suivant 1927 – 1967 – 2007] (1979).

– Henri-Jacques PROUMEN (1879-1962), “Surhommes”, in [La Boîte aux marionnettes] (1930).

– Jean PAINLEVÉ (1902-1989), “La Fin des robots” (1933).

– Léon GROC (1882-1956), “Crimes instantanés… En pressant sur le bouton du Mandarin” (1933).

– CURNONSKY (Maurice Edmond Saillant, 1872-1956), *“Un Millénaire de gastronomie” (1933).

– René de PLANHOL (1889-1940), “Le Désastre” (1930).

– Pierre DRIEU LA ROCHELLE (1893-1945), “Défense de sortir” (1930), in [Journal d’un mari trompé] (1934).

– Pierre de NOLHAC (1859-1936), “Babel à Ferney”, in [Contes philosophiques] (1932).

– Jacques SPITZ (1896-1963), L’Agonie du globe (1935) // La Guerre mondiale nº 3 (2009) // “Après l’ère atomique” (2009).

– Fernand BOVERAT (1885-1962), La Bataille de l’océan (1937).

– Régis MESSAC (1893-1945), *“Les nouveaux fragments de l’histoire générale publiée en 2907” (1937) // *“Les évêques partout” (1937).

– A. J. [Auguste-Jean] PELLAT, Société des Nations et gouvernement international (1938).

– Jacques STERNBERG (1923-2006), “Précis de l’histoire du futur” (1955) / “Petit Précis de l’histoire de futur” [188 contes à régler] (1988), “Les conquérants”, in [Entre deux mondes incertains] (1957) // “La colonisation”, “Le contact”, “Les dirigeants”, “La poubelle”, “La richesse”, in [188 contes à régler] (1988).

– Jean PAULHAC (1921-2011), “La machine à faire des mondes”, in [Un bruit de guêpes] (1957).

– Didier ANZIEU (1923-1999), “Le totémisme aujourd’hui”, “La tour de Babel”, in [Contes à rebours] (1975/1987/1995).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “Chronique du surhomme”, in [Diable, Dieu et autres contes de menterie] (1965) // “Les Juifs de Mars”, in [Rêveries d’un Martien en exil] (1976) // (atribuido a Michel Morat), “Ludion”, in [L’Évangile du rien] (1980).

– Gérard KLEIN (Gilles d’Argyre, 1937-), “Discours pour le centième anniversaire de l’Internationale Végétarienne” (1968), in [Histoires comme si…] (1975).

– Louis BAYLE (1907-1989), “La Guerre des ondes”, “L’Énigme des hommes blancs”, in [Contes d’hier et de demain] (1970).

– Gilles Marie BAUR (1945-), [La Vie sexuelle des robots] (1988).

– Jean SILVE DE VENTAVON, “Extrait de l’Histoire du Royaume-Empire” (1992).

– Sylvain JOUTY (1949-), “L’épidémie mortelle”, “Comment les Moara conquirent le monde”, in [La Visite au tombeau de mes ancêtres] (1995) // “La mort du chef”, “La clarière de Finges”, in [Queen Kong] (2001).

– Bernard WERBER (1961-), “Du pain et des jeux”, “Tel maître, tel lion”, in [L’Arbre des possibles et autres histoires] (2002) // “La guerre des marques”, in [Paradis sur mesure] (2008).

– Denis MONIÈRE (1947-), 25 ans de souveraineté: Histoire de la République du Québec (2006).

– Giuseppe RICCIARDI (1808-1882), Storia dell’Italia dal 1850 al 1900 (1842).

– Ippolito NIEVO (1831-1861), “Storia filosofica dei secoli futuri” (1860).

– Giovanni SEREGNI, “Una conferenza di storia dell’anno 3000. Il mondo nel XX secolo” (1903).

– Carlo MONTICELLI (1857-1913), *Il primo giorno del socialismo (1904).

– Giulio DOUHET (1869-1930), “La guerra del 19-” (1930).

– Virgilio MARTINI (1906-1988), Il mondo senza donne (1936).

– Vitaliano BRANCATI (1907-1954), “L’isola” (1936).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “L’epidemia” (1941), in [L’epidemia] (1944/1956).

– Dino BUZZATI (1906-1972), “24 marzo 1958”, in [Il crollo de la Baliverna] (1954).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “Frammenti”, in [Diario minimo] (1963/1975) // “Italia 2000” (1991), in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Juan Rodolfo WILCOCK (1919-1978), “Le forme nuove”, in [Lo stereoscopio dei solitari] (1972).

– Vittorio SILVESTRINI (1935-), Storia della terza Guerra Mondiale (1982).

– Alexandru MACEDONSKI (1854-1920), “Oceania-Pacific-Dreadnought” (1913).

– Alice GABRIELESCU (1893-?), “O descoperire antifeministă” (1928).

– Ştefan TITA (1905-1977), “Omul sintetic”, in [Spovedania unui atom] (1947).

– Vasile VOICULESCU (1884-1963), “Lobocoagularea prefrontală” [(1948) 1982].

– Max SOLOMON (1914-2005), “Cerul de sticlă” (1965), in [La 90] (2004).

– Ovid S. CROHMĂLNICEANU (Moise Cohn, 1921-2000), “Un capitol de istorie literară”, in [Istorii insolite] (1980) // “Cele zece triburi pierdute”, in [Alte istorii insolite] (1986).

– Romulus DINU (1921-), “Boala de congelare (Apatia criogenitică)”, in […dintr-o lume congelată şi… false ficţiuni] (1980).

– Mihail GRĂMESCU (1951-2014), “Jurnalul de bord al navei Hyacinth”, “Condotierii”, “Penicillium gigantea”, in [Aporisticon] (1981/2012).

ALTERNATE HISTORY

– G. Macaulay TREVELYAN (1876-1962), “If Napoleon Had Won the Battle of Waterloo” (1907), in [Recent Essays] (1926).

– Charles PETRIE (1895-1977), “If: A Jacobite Fantasy” (1926), in The Jacobite Movement: The Last Phase, 1716-1807 (1950).

– Hendrik Willem VAN LOON (1882-1944), “If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam” (1931).

– Winston S. CHURCHILL (1874-1965), “If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg” (1931).

– Harold NICOLSON (1886-1968), “If Byron Had Become King of Greece” (1931).

– Milton WALDMAN (1895-1976), “If Booth Had Missed Lincoln” (1931).

– Emil LUDWIG (1881-1948), “If the Emperor Frederick Had Not Had Cancer” (1931).

– J. C. SQUIRE (1884-1958), “If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 that Bacon Really Did Write Shakespeare” (1931).

– Frederick ROLFE (1860-1913), Hubert’s Arthur (1935).

– MacKinlay KANTOR (1904-1977), If the South Had Won the Civil War (1960).

– Brian ALDISS (1925-), “MERO’s Sinai Project, 1957-1970”, in [The Shape of Further Things: Speculations on Change] (1970).

– Gary GYGAX (1938-2008); Terry STAFFORD (1941-1996), *Victorious German Arms: An Alternate Military History of World War II (1973).

– Robert SOBEL (1931-1999), For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga (1973).

– Vine DELORIA Jr. (1933-2005), “Why the U.S. Never Fought the Indians” (1976).

– Steven UTLEY (1948-); Howard WALDROP (1946-), “Custer’s Last Jump!” (1976), in [Custer’s Last Jump and Other Collaborations] (1997).

– John LUKACS (1924-), “What if Hitler Had Won the Second World War” (1978).

– Kenneth MACKSEY (1923-2005), Invasion: The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England July 1940 (1980).

– Poul ANDERSON (1926-2001), “Unclefting Beholding (from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)” (1989), in [Kinship with the Stars] (1991) and [All One Universe] (1996).

– Adrian GILBERT (1954-), Britain Invaded: Hitler’s Plans for Britain (1990).

– Peter TSOURAS, Disaster at D-Day: The Germans Defeat the Allies, June 1944 (1994).

– Robert Crowley (ed.), [What If? The World’s Most Famous Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been] (1999) // [More What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been] (2001).

– Andrew Roberts (ed.), [What Might Have Been. Imaginary History from Twelve Leading Historians] (2004).

– David MOLES, [“Five Irrational Histories”] (2004).

– Michael MOORCOCK (1939-), “Shamalung (The Diminutions)” (2011).

– Tad WILLIAMS (1957-), “A Short History of Dunkelblau’s Meistergarten” (2011).

– Ted CHIANG (1967-), “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny” (2011).

– Lev GROSSMAN (1969-), “Sir Ranulph Wykeham-Rackham, GBE, a.k.a., Roboticus the All-Knowing” (2011).

– Cherie PRIEST (1975-), “Addison Howell and the Clockroach” (2011).

– Reza NEGARESTANI (1977-), “The Gallows-Horse” (2011).

– Will HINDMARCH, “The Auble Gun” (2011).

– Amar EL-MOHTAR, “The Singing Fish” (2011).

– Nilo María FABRA (1843-1903), “Cuatro siglos de buen gobierno”, in [Por los espacios imaginarios (con escalas en la Tierra)] (1885).

– Víctor ALBA (Pere Pagès i Elies, 1916-2003), 1936-1976. Historia de la Segunda República española (1976).

– Daniel BARBIERI (Daniel Croci, 1951-2004), “Si Evita hubiera vivido” (1990).

– Joan Maria Thomàs (ed.), [La historia de España que no pudo ser: doce prestigiosos historiadores explican lo que pudo haber sido y no fue] (2007).

– Eduardo VAQUERIZO (1967-), “Breve consideración sobre el nacimiento de la Conchabía Conjurada”, “Imperio: cuatro siglos de asombro. Introducción”, “Evolución tecnológica: necesidad y remedio”, “La derrota del directorado frente a los comuneros de la Nueva Borgoña de Norte América”, “Consideraciones sobre la reforma: imperio y religión”, in Memoria de tinieblas (2013) // “Cronología” [Crónicas de tinieblas] (2014).

– Louis GEOFFROY (1803-1858), Napoléon et la conquête du Monde. 1812 à 1832. Histoire de la Monarchie universelle (1836).

– Charles RENOUVIER (1815-1903), Uchronie (1876).

– André MAUROIS (Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, 1885-1967), “Si Louis XVI…”, in [Mes songes que voici] (1932).

– Jean TARDIEU (1903-1995), “Une page d’histoire: L’Assassinat de Louis XIV”, in [Le Professeur Frœppel] (1978).

– Bernard QUILLIET, *La Véritable Histoire de la France (1983).

– Maurice GOLDRING (1927-), La République Populaire de France (1949-1981) (1984).

– Jacques Spir, Frank Stora, Loïc Mahé (eds.), 1940. Et si la France avait continué la guerre: Essai d’alternative historique (2010) – 1941-1942. Et si la France avait continué la guerre: Essai d’alternative historique (2012).

– Guido MORSELLI (1912-1973), Contro-passato prossimo (1975).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “Una storia vera” (1979), in [Sette anni di desiderio] (1986) / [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Giancarlo LUNATI (1928-2014), [Gesù. Quattro vite verosimili] (2000).

– Enrico RULLI (1958-), “Il grande volo dell’aquila bicipite” (2005).

– Carlo DE RISIO (1935-), “Guerra lampo” (2005).

– Dănuţ IVĂNESCU; Ionuţ BĂNUŢĂ; Caius STANCU, “Scurtă istorie generală a lucrurilor”, in [Motocentauri pe Acoperişul Lumii] (1995).

HISTORY OF PAST IMAGINARY COUNTRIES

– G. [Granville] Stanley HALL (1844-1924), “The Fall of Atlantis”, in [Recreations of a Psychologist] (1920).

– [Howard] P. [Phillips] LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), “The Doom That Came to Sarnath” (1920) // “The Cats of Ulthar” (1920).

– Robert E. [Ervin] HOWARD (1906-1936), “The Hyborian Age” (1938).

– John BOARDMAN (Jack Melton Boardman, 1932-), “Ocean Trade in the Hyborian Age” (1960).

– J. [John] R. [Ronald] R. [Reuel] TOLKIEN (1892-1973), “The Tale of Years (Chronology of the Westlands”, in The Lord of the Rings (1967) // “The Line of Elros: Kings of Númenor from the Founding of the City of Armenelos to the Downfall”, “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields”, “The Battles of the Ford of Isen”, in [Unfinished Tales] (1980) // “The Annals of Aman”, in [Morgoth’s Ring] (1993).

– Dean Francis ALFAR (1969-), “An Excerpt from Princes of the Sultanate (Ghazali: 1992); Annotated by Omar Jamad Maududi, MLS, HOL, JMS.” (2007), in [The Kite of Stars and Other Stories] (2008).

– José de SILES (1856-1911), “La batalla de los árboles” (1884).

– René AVILÉS FABILA (1940-2016), “El proceso de las ratas”, in [Hacia el fin del mundo] (1969) and [Fantasías en carrusel] (1978/1995/2001).

– Rafael SÁNCHEZ FERLOSIO (1927-2019), “Los lectores del ayer” (1980), “Los príncipes concordes”, in [El geco] (2005).

– Juan BENET (1927-1993), Herrumbrosas lanzas (1983-2009).

– Diego MUÑOZ VALENZUELA (1956-), “El Valle del Inca”, in [Nada ha terminado] (1984).

– José OVEJERO (1958-), “Historia de Anquises el Silencioso”, in [Cuentos para salvarnos todos] (1996).

– Gloria MÉNDEZ (1969-), “El ejército de Amzif I”, in [El informe Kristeva] (1997).

– Iban ZALDUA (1966-), “La isla de los antropólogos”, in [La isla de los antropólogos y otros relatos] (2001).

– Alberto LÓPEZ AROCA (1976-), “La guía de Arkham”, in [Necronomicón Z] (2012).

– Juan GÓMEZ BÁRCENA (1984-), “La leyenda del rey Aktasar”, in [Los que duermen y otros relatos] (2012).

– Roberto GONZÁLEZ-QUEVEDO (1953-), “De bello paesico”, “Paesicorum terram serpentis…”, in [Hestoria de la l.literatura primera en Pesicia] (2014).

– X. [Xavier] B. [Boniface] SAINTINE (1798-1865), “Histoire d’une civilisation antédiluvienne” (1832), in [Jonathan le visionnaire] (1866).

-Alphonse DAUDET (1840-1897), “Wood’stown” (1873), in [Robert Helmont] (1874).

– Jean d’ORMESSON (1925-2017), La Gloire de l’empire (1971).

– Augusto FRASSINETI (1911-1985), “Fine dell’imperio degli Èmori”, in Mistero dei ministeri (1952).

– Juan Rodolfo WILCOCK (1919-1978), “L’Atlantide”, in [Lo stereoscopio dei solitari] (1972).

– Mihai MĂNIUŢIU (1954-), “Căutători de comori din Eldo”, in [Un zeu aproape muritor] (1982).

SECRET HISTORY

– Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849), “Van Kempelen and His Discovery” (1849).

– Edmund BACKHOUSE (1873-1944), J. [John] O. [Otway] P. [Percy] BLAND, China under the Empress Dowager (1910).

– H. L. MENCKEN (1880-1956), “A Neglected Anniversary” (1917), in [A Mencken Chrestomathy] (1949).

– H. [Howard] P. [Phillips] LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), “The History of the Necronomicon” (1938).

– James E. MILLER (1920-2010), “How Newton Discovered the Law of Gravitation” (1951).

– Woody ALLEN (Allan Stewart Königsberg, 1935-), “The Discovery and Use of Fake Ink Blot” (1966), in [Getting Even] (1971).

– Harry MATHEWS (1930-), “Tradition and the Individual Talent: The “Bratislava Spiccato””, in [Country Cooking and Other Stories] (1980).

– J. [Joanne] K. ROWLING (1965-), Quidditch through the Ages (2001; as by Kennilworthy Wisp).

– John Thomas SLADEK (1937-2002), Wholly Smokes (2003).

– Max BROOKS (1972-), [“Recorded Attacks”], in The Zombie Survival Guide (2003).

– Mark A. RAINER, “A Short History of Groundhog Day”, in [Pirate Therapy and Other Cures] (2012).

– Juan José ARREOLA (1918-2001), “Nabónides”, in [Confabulario] (1952).

– Pedro GÓMEZ VALDERRAMA (1923-1992), “El ala izquierda del águila”, in [El retablo de Maese Pedro] (1973) and [Más arriba del reino] (1980).

– Edgardo RODRÍGUEZ JULIÁ (1946-), La renuncia del héroe Baltasar (1974).

– Fernando DURÁN AYANEGUI (1939-), “Política y cornucopia”, in [El benefactor y otros relatos] (1981).

– Enrique VILA-MATAS (1948-), Histoira abreviada de la literatura portátil (1985).

– Juan PERUCHO (1920-2003), [Historias secretas de balnearios] (1972) // [Minuta de monstruos] (1987).

– Santiago BERUETE (1961-); Fernando Luis CHIVITE (1959-), “Silogismo en Bárbara”, “Del estado óptimo de la república o de la nueva utopía de Inopia”, in [Los furores inútiles] (1990).

– Pedro UGARTE (1963-), “La Escuela Breve de Liverpool”, in [Materiales para una expedición] (2002).

– Alberto LÓPEZ AROCA (1976-), [“Mitología creativa”], in Los espectros conjurados (2004).

– Juan GÓMEZ BÁRCENA (1984-), “La virgen de los cabellos cortados”, in [Los que duermen y otros relatos] (2012).

– Julián DÍEZ (1968-), “Gigamesh en el cine: frustraciones y éxito” (2015).

– Étienne-Léon de LAMOTHE-LANGON (1786-1864), Histoire de l’Inquisition en France (1829).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “Cette année-là, Dieu fut”, in [L’Arrière-monde] (1972) // “La bataille de l’eau de Lourdes”, in [La Rose réaliste] (1985) // “Le Vampire de la Place Rouge”, in [Contes cuistres] (1987).

– Sylvain JOUTY (1949-), “Les G”, in [La Visite au tombeau de mes ancêtres] (1995).

– Constantin A. IONESCU-CAION (1880-1918), “Un război al lui Mircea în 1399” (1901).

ALLEGORICAL HISTORY

– Richard WHATELEY (1787-1863); William FITZGERALD (1814-1883), Historic Certainties Respecting the Early History of America (1851).

– James THOMSON (1834-1882), “The Story of a Famous Old Jewish Firm” (1865), in [Satires and Profanities] (1884).

– Jonquil (J. L. COLLINS), Queen Krinaleen’s Plagues, or, How a Simple People Were Destroyed (1874).

– W. [Walter] J. [James] TURNER (1889-1946), “The State”, in [Fables, Parables and Plots] (1943).

– H. [Howard] P. [Phillips] LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), “The Battle That Ended the Century (MS. Found in a Time Machine)” (1944).

– Mark TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910), “Passage from “Outlines of History” (Suppressed), Date, 9th Century”, in [Fables of Man] (1972).

– Neil B. [Baird] THOMPSON (1921-1977), “The Mysterious Fall of the Nacirema” (1972).

– Benjamin ROSENBAUM (1969-), “Zvlotsk” (2002), in [Other Cities] (2003).

– Afonso Henriques de LIMA BARRETO (1881-1922), “A firmeza de Al-Bandeirah” (1915) – “A solidariedade de Al-Bandeirah” (1915) – “O reconhecimento” (1915) // “Congresso Pamplanetário”, in [Histórias e sonhos] (1920) // “O Falso Dom Henrique V” (1921).

– FERREIRA GULLAR (José RIBAMAR FERREIRA, 1930-), “Vat Phan”, “Tyfw”, “Texclx”, “Fraternópolis”, “Tuxmu”, “Minofagasta”, “Iscúmbria”, “Inoa”, “Zambarbirna”, “Wen-Fen”, “Mori”, “Bela”, “Adrixerlinus”, in [Cidades Inventadas] (1997).

-*Aureópolis (1891).

– Esteban BORRERO ECHEVERRÍA (1849-1906), El ciervo encantado (1905).

– Julio TORRI (1889-1970), “La conquista de la Luna”, “Era un país pobre”, in [Ensayos y poemas] (1917).

– AZORÍN (José MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, 1873-1967), “Un enigma histórico” (1923), in [Escritores] (1956).

– Luis de TAPIA (1871-1937), “El gran problema de las islas “Kukay”” (1926).

– Felisberto HERNÁNDEZ (1902-1964), “Acunamiento”, in [Libro sin tapas] (1929).

– Vicente HUIDOBRO (1893-1948), “El gato con botas y Simbad el marino o Badsim el marrano”, in [Tres inmensas novelas] (1935).

– Carlos FUENTES (1928-2012), “En defensa de la Trigolibia”, in [Los días enmascarados] (1954).

– Antonio CASTRO LEAL (1896-1981), “La literatura no se cotiza” (1937), in [El laurel de San Lorenzo] (1959).

– Álvaro de LAIGLESIA (1922-1981), “Continúa el congreso pro-paz”, in [El baúl de los cadáveres] (1948).

– Segundo SERRANO PONCELA (1912-1976), “El filántropo” (1965), in [Los huéspedes] (1968).

– Manuel MUJICA LÁINEZ (1910-1984), Crónicas reales (1967).

– Manuel DERQUI (1921-1973), “Sigue Poeta” (1969).

– Alberto CAÑAS (1920-2014), “La terrible revolución que se venía”, in [La exterminación de los pobres y otros pienses] (1974).

– Juan GARCÍA HORTELANO (1928-1992), “Cuestiones flabelígeras”, in [Mucho cuento] (1987).

– Fernando U. SEGOVIA ¿(Angélica GORODISCHER, 1929-)?, “Historia de la fragua (para la escuela media)” (1988).

– Antonio MENCHACA (1921-2002), “El rascacielos”, in [Amor siempre asediado y otros relatos] (1989).

– José ELGARRESTA (1945-), “La república feliz de Maranchón”, in Cutrelandia: La República de las Letras (2005).

– David ARIAS (1965-), “Que tu pie izquierdo no sepa lo que hace el derecho”, in [Horrores cotidianos] (2007).

– Iban ZALDUA (1966-), “La Bella Durmiente: una historia económica”, in [Porvenir] (2007).

– Àngel FERRAN (1892-1971), “De la prehistòria a la civilització” (1928).

– Pere CALDERS (1912-1994), “L’espiral” (1956), in [Tots els contes] (1968) // “Reportatge del dia repetit”, in [Demà, a les tres de la matinada] (1959) // “La rebeŀlió de les coses”, “Esport i ciutadania”, in [Invasió subtil i altres contes] (1978) // “Tot queda a casa”, in [Un estrany al jardí] (1985).

– George VILLELONGUE, “La légende de la guillotine” (1887).

– Gabriel de LAUTREC (1867-1938), “Le mur”, in [Poèmes en prose] (1898) / [La Vengeance du portrait ovale] (1922).

– Marcel MARIEN (1920-1993), “Le temps mort”, in [Les Fantômes du château des cartes] (1981).

– Ursicin G. [Gion] G. [Gieli] DERUNGS (1935-), “Ils plats”, in [Il cavalut verd ed auter] (1988).

– Giovanni PAPINI (1881-1956), “Mahavir o della populazione crescente” (1949), in [Le pazzie del poeta] (1950).

– Giovanni CAVICCHIOLI (1908-1979), «Il gran traforo», in [Favole] (1951).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “Il diavolo in campagna”, in [L’epidemia] (1956).

– Primo LEVI (1919-1987), “Censura in Bitinia” (1961), in [Storie naturali] (1966).

– Lia WAINSTEIN (1919-2001), “I Cacciatori di Teste”, in [Viaggio in Drimonia] (1965).

– Roberto VACCA (1927-), “Incomunicabilità 1”, in [Esempi di avvenire] (1965) and [Carezzate con terrore la testa dei vostri figli] (1992) – “Incomunicabilità 2”, in [Carezzate con terrore la testa dei vostri figli] (1992).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “Il pensiero di Brachamutanda”, in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Eugen IONESCU / Eugène IONESCO (1909-1994), “Trifoiul cu patru foi”, in [Nu] (1934).

– Ştefan TITA (1905-1977), “Războiul celor 43 de zile”, “Rasa pură”, “Protocolul de la Modena”, in [Avantajul de a fi câine] (1938).

– Gheorghe SĂSĂRMAN (1941-), “Tropaeum”, “Seneţia”, “Protopolis”, “Castrum”, “Musaeum”, “Homogenia”, “Cosmovia”, “Geopolis”, in [Cuadratura cercului] (1975/2001).

– Mihai MĂNIUŢIU (1954-), “Erezia”, “Cautătorii de comori din Eldo”, in [Un zeu aproape muritor] (1982).

XENOHISTORY OR ANIMAL HISTORY

– William Morton WHEELER (1865-1937), “The Termitodoxa, or, Biology and Society” (1920).

– Julian HUXLEY (1887-1975), “Philosophical Ants”, in [Essays of a Biologist] (1923).

– Jacquetta HAWKES (1910-1996), “Export and Die”, in [Fables] ([A Woman as Great as the World and Other Fables]) (1953).

– E. [Edward] O. [Osborne] WILSON (1929-), “Trailhead” (2010).

– Joaquim Maria MACHADO DE ASSIS (1839-1908), “A Sereníssima República”, in [Papéis Avulsos] (1882).

– Adolfo PÉREZ ZELASCHI (1920-2005), “Historia general de las hormigas” (como Harald Heggstad), in [Más allá de los espejos] (1949).

– Juan José ARREOLA (1918-2001), “El prodigioso miligramo”, in [Confabulario] (1952).

– J. [Juan] J. [José] BENÍTEZ (1946-), “El mundo de los topos”, in [Sueños] (1982).

– Roger AVERMAETE (1893-1988), La Conjuration des chats (1919-1920).

– Carlo CASSOLA (1917-1987), “La comunità dei camosci e degli stambecchi”, in [La morale del branco] (1980).

ALIEN OR GALACTIC HISTORY

– James William BARLOW (1826-1913), History of a World of Immortals without a God (como Antares Skorpios, 1891) / The Immortals’ Great Quest (1909).

– Edward WELLEN (1919-2011), “Origins of Galactic Slang” (1952) // “Origins of Galactic Law” (1953) // “Origins of the Galactic Short-Snorter” (1960) // “Origins of Galactic Fruit Salad” (1962).

– Frank HERBERT (1920-1986), “The Ecology of Dune”, “The Religion of Dune”, “Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes”, in Dune (1965).

– Brian ALDISS (1925-), “Heresies of the Huge God” (1966), in [The Moment of Eclipse] (1970).

– Iain M. BANKS (1954-2013), “The Idiran-Culture War”, in Consider Phlebas (1987).

– Ralph HORSLEY, “The Battle of Nîs-Pazar” (1999).

– Ursula K. [Kroeber] LE GUIN (1929-2018), “Wake Island”, in [Changing Planes](2002).

– George R. R. MARTIN (1948-); Elio Miguel GARCÍA Jr. (1978-); Linda Maria ANTONSSON (1974-), The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (2014).

– José NUNES DE MATTA (1849-1946), “História geral do Planeta Marte”, in História autêntica do Planeta Marte (como Henri Mongolfier, 1921).

– Mário-Henrique LEIRIA (1923-1980), “Casos de direito galático”, in [Casos de direito galático. O mundo inquietante de Josela (fragmentos)] (1975).

– Charlemagne-Ischir DEFONTENAY (1814-1856), Star ou Ψ de Cassiopée (1854).

– Carlo FRABETTI (Italia, 1945-), “Dialexis” (1972).

– Max SOLOMON (1914-2005), “Cerul de sticlă” (1965), in [La 90] (2004).

Related fictional historiographic genres

MOCK OLD CHRONICLE

– Nilson MARTELLO, “Da Mayor Speriencia” (1965).

– Alphonse RABBE (1784-1829), “Anecdote du IXe siècle”, in [Album d’un pessimiste] (1836).

– ¿Ignazio PILLITO (1806-1895)?, [Pergamene, codici e fogli cartacei d’Arborea] (Cartas de Arborea / Carte d’Arborea) (1863).

– Giacomo LEOPARDI (1798-1837), Martirio de’ Santi Padri del Monte Sinai e dell’eremo di Raitu (1822).

– Monaldo LEOPARDI (1776-1847), Memoriale di frate Giovanni (1828/1833).

– Giuseppe CUGNONI (1824-1908), Vita di Arhot monaco (1884).

– ¿Constandin SION (1795-1862)?, Izvodul spătarului Clănău (Cronica lui Huru) (1856).

– George TOPÂRCEANU (1886-1937), “Domnia lui Ciubăr Vodă”, in [Scrisori fără adresă] (1930).

MOCK GENEALOGY

– James Branch CABELL (1879-1958), The Lineage of Lichfield (1922).

MOCK BIOGRAPHY

– Samuel BUTLER (1835-1902), “Memoir of the Late John Pickard Owen”, in The Fair Heaven (1873).

– Ambrose BIERCE (1842-¿1914?), “John Smith, Liberator (from a Newspaper of the Far Future)” (1873).

– Jack LONDON (John London, 1876-1916), “The Enemy of All the World” (1908), in [The Strength of the Strong] (1911).

– William George JORDAN (1864-1928), “The Personal Side of Larrovitch”, in Feodor Vladimir Larrovitch, an Appreciation of his Life and Works (1918).

– H. [Howard] P. [Phillips] LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), “Ibid” (1938).

– Isaac ASIMOV (1920-1992), “The Man Who Made the 21st Century” (1965).

– Frank HERBERT (1920-1986), “The Almanak en-Sharaf (Selected Excerpts of the Noble Houses)”, in Dune (1965).

– William S. [Stuart] BARING-GOULD (1913-1967), Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-Fifth Street (1969).

– C. [Cyril] Northcote PARKINSON (1909-1993), *The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower (1970) // *Jeeves: A Gentleman’s Personal Gentleman (1979).

– Steven MILLHAUSER (1943-), Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright (1972).

– Philip José FARMER (1918-2009), Tarzan Alive (1972) // *Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973).

– John D. [Drury] CLARK (1907-1988), P. [Peter] Schuyler MILLER (1912-1974), L. [Lyon] Sprague de CAMP (1907-2000), “An Informal Biography of Conan the Cimmerian” (1979).

– David T. ST. ALBANS (David Thomas Pudelwitts, 1954-), “The Life of the Master (A Biography of Abdul Alhazred by His Student, El-Rashi)” (1984).

– Arthur C. CLARKE (1917-2008), “The Steam-Powered Word Processor” (1986), in Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1989).

– Anne HART, The Life and Times of Miss Jane Marple (1985) // The Life and Times of Hercule Poirot (1990).

– William BOYD (1952-), Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 (1998).

– Andrew MOTION (1952-), The Invention of Dr Cake (2003).

– S. J. HIRONS (1973-), [“Pages Torn from Eminent Phantasists: A New Edition”] (2013).

– Shay AZOULAY, “Jacob Wallenstein, Notes for a Future Biography” (2013).

– Jorge de SENA (1919-1978), “Um imenso inédito semi-camoniano, e o menos que adiante se verá”, in As Quybyrycas (1972).

– Luís Filipe SILVA (1970-), [“Introduções”], in [Os Anos de Ouro da Pulp Fiction Portuguesa] (2011).

– Carlos CASARES (1941-2002), [Os escuros soños de Clío] (1979).

– Silverio LANZA (Juan Bautista Amorós, 1856-1912), Noticias biográficas acerca del Excmo. Sr. Marqués del Mantillo (1889).

– Rafael Zamora y Pérez de Urría, marqués de VALERO DE URRÍA (1861-1908), “Biografía de D. Iscariotes Val de Ur diligentemente escrita por su discípulo y albacea”, in [Crímenes literarios] (1906).

– José María SÁNCHEZ MAZAS (1894-1966), “La famosa noche de Robinson Crusoe en Pamplona” (1929).

– José María SALAVERRÍA (1873-1940), Vida de Martín Fierro, el gaucho ejemplar (1934).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), “Biografía de Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874)” (1944), in [El Aleph] (1949).

– Juan José ARREOLA (1918-2001), “Sinesio de Rodas”, in [Confabulario] (1952).

– Max AUB (1903-1972), Jusep Torres Campalans (1958).

– Juan PERUCHO (1920-2003), [“Las figuras”], in [Galería de espejos sin fondo] (1963).

– Rafael PÉREZ ESTRADA (1934-2000), “A modo de biografía y más”, in Revelaciones de la Madre Margarita Amable del Divino Niño del Sí (1970).

– Pedro GÓMEZ VALDERRAMA (1923-1992), “El maestro de la soledad”, in [El retablo de Maese Pedro] (1973) and [Más arriba del reino] (1980).

– PALOMA DÍAZ MAS (1954-), [Biografías de genios, traidores, sabios y suicidas, según antiguos documentos] (1973).

– Rafael LLOPIS (1933), “Historia y leyenda de Abdelesar”, in [El Novísimo Algazife o Libro de las Postrimerías] (1980).

– Santiago BERUETE (1961-); Fernando Luis CHIVITE (1959-), “Anquises, el pesimista”, “El idealismo intrascendental”, “Vida de un poeta apócrifo”, in [Los furores inútiles] (1990).

– Felipe BENÍTEZ REYES (1960-), [Vidas improbables] (1995/2009).

– Roberto BOLAÑO (1953-2003), [La literatura nazi en América] (1996).

– Marcos Ricardo BARNATÁN (1946-), “Noticia de Gabriel Zapata”, in [La República de Mónaco] (2000).

– Pedro UGARTE (1963-), “El deterioro”, “Es demasiado para mí, dijo el ranchero”, in [Materiales para una expedición] (2002).

– Braulio ORTIZ POOLE (1974-), “¿Fue Lucy Melville víctima de una maldición egipcia?”, in [Biografías bastardas] (2005).

– Jesús COBO (1946-), “Crucigramas antiguos”, in [Veinte cuentos a deshora] (2008).

– Iban ZALDUA (1966-), “El canon de la literatura vasca”, in La patria de todos los vascos (2008).

– Rodolfo MARTÍNEZ (1965-), “Laoché Hernández, artesano de la imaginación”, in [El carpintero y la lluvia] (2010).

– Xuan BELLO (1965-), [Pantasmes, mundos, laberintos] (1996).

– José Luis RENDUELES (1972-), “Los meyores cuentos del mundu”, in [Los meyores cuentos del mundu y otres proses mongoles] (2007).

– Joan PERUCHO (1920-2003), [Històries apòcrifes] (1974).

– Pere CALDERS (1912-1994), “Filomena Ustrell (1916-1962)”, in [Invasió subtil i altres contes] (1978).

– Carme RIERA (1948-), “Informe”, in [Contra l’amor en companyia i altres relats] (1991).

– A. MUNNÉ-JORDÀ (1948-), “En el centenari de Valerià Cabrera i Prats” (1981) / “En homenatge a Valerià Cabrera i Prats”, in [El mirall venecià] (2008).

– Vicenç PAGÈS JORDÀ (1963-), [“Escriptors inèdits”], “Biografia d’Àngel Mauri”, in [El poeta i altres contes] (2005).

– Prosper MÉRIMÉE (1803-1870), “Notice sur Clara Gazul”, in [Théâtre de Clara Gazul, comédienne espagnole] (1825) // “Notice sur Hyacinthe Maglanovich”, in [La Guzla ou choix de poésies illyriques recueillies dans la Dalmatie, la Bosnie, la Croatie et l’Herzégowine] (1827).

– Charles-Augustin SAINTE-BEUVE (1804-1869), “Vie de Joseph Delorme”, in Vie, poésies et pensées de Joseph Delorme (1829).

– Évariste BOULAY-PATY (1804-1864), “Vie”, in Élie Mariaker (1834).

– Pierre LOUŸS (1870-1925), “Vie de Bilitis”, in [Las Chansons de Bilitis] (1895).

– Paul-Jean TOULET /1867-1920), Monsieur du Paur, homme public (1898/1920).

– Valery LARBAUD (1881-1957), “Biographie de M. Barnabooth par X. M. Tournier de Zamble”, in [Poèmes par un riche amateur ou Œuvres françaises de M. Barnabooth] (1908).

– Pierre de NOLHAC (1859-1936), “Bousquillot, sa vie et ses œuvres”, in [Contes philosophiques] (1932).

– Gustave FLAUBERT (1821-1880), “Vie et travaux du R.P. Cruchard” (1943).

– Yves GANDON (1899-1975), “Tsing Pann Yang, la vie et l’œuvre”, in [La Terrasse des désespoirs] (1943) / [Le Pavillon des délices regrettées] (1947).

– Paul-Louis THIRARD, “Une question mal connue: les débuts de Maurice Burnan” (1955).

– Jean DUTOURD (1920-2011), “Ludwig Schnorr ou la marche de l’histoire” (1958), in [Les Dupes] (1959).

– Didier ANZIEU (1923-1999), “Le nécrologiste”, in [Contes à rebours] (1975/1987/1995).

– Pascal QUIGNARD (1948-), “Vie d’Apronenia Avitia”, in Les Tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia (1984).

– Dominique NOGUEZ (1942-), Les Trois Rimbaud (1986).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “Vie amoureuse de Jean Valjean”, in [Contes cuistres] (1987) // “La passion de John Bow”, in [Le Musée des apochryphes] (1990).

– George PEREC (1936-1982), “Une Amitié scientifique et littéraire: Léon Burp et Marcel Gotlib suivi de Considérations nouvelles sur la vie et l’œuvre de Romuald Saint-Sohaint”, in [Cantatrix sopranica L. et autres écrits scientifiques] (1991).

– Roland C. WAGNER (1960-2012), H. P. L. (1890-1991) (1995).

– Éric CHEVILLARD (1964-), “Chronologie”, in [L’Œuvre posthume de Thomas Pilaster] (1999).

– Samir BOUADI; Agathe COLOMBIER-HOCHBERG, [26,5 auteurs qui n’existent pas mais qu’il faut absolument avoir lus] (2008).

– Bernard QUIRINY (1978-), “Quelques écrivains, tous morts”, in [Contes carnivores] (2008).

– Yves SAVIGNY (Jean-Benoît PUECH, 1947-), Une biographie autorisée (2010).

– Yann DALL’AGLIO, Vies, sentences et doctrines des sages imaginaires (2014).

– Juan Rodolfo WILCOCK (1919-1978), [La sinagoga degli iconoclasti] (1972).

– Sebastiano VASSALLI (1941-), 3012: l’anno del profeta (1995).

– Luigi MALERBA (1927-2008), [Biografie immaginarie] (2014).

– Mihai MĂNIUŢIU (1954-), “Sibila Sy”, in [Un zeu aproape muritor] (1982).

MOCK MEMOIRS

– Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849), “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” (1835), in [Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque] (1840) // “The Balloon-Hoax” (1844).

– George Tomkyns CHESNEY (1830-1895), The Battle of Dorking (1871).

– Maximilian MOLTRUHN, *The Other Side at the Battle of Dorking (1871).

– Hugh Oakley ARNOLD-FOSTER (1855-1909), “In a Conning Tower: How I Took HMS Majestic into Action” (1888).

– Ronald KNOX (1888-1957), Memories of the Future (1923).

– Neil BELL (Stephen Southwold, 1887-1964), The Gas War of 1940 / Valiant Clay (1931/1934).

– Frederick Philip GROVE (1879-1948), Consider Her Ways (1947).

– Michael CRICHTON (1942-2008), Eaters of the Dead (1976).

– David LANGFORD (1953-), An Account of a Meeting with Denizens from Another World, 1871 by William Robert Loosley (1979).

– Daniel Snowman (ed.), [If I Had Been…: Ten Historical Fantasies] (1979).

– David SELBOURNE (1937-), The City of Light (1997).

– Joaquim Maria MACHADO DE ASSIS (1839-1908), “O segredo do bonzo”, in [Papéis Avulsos] (1882).

– Miguel VALE DE ALMEIDA (1960-), “Evolução” (2006).

– Ángel GANIVET (1865-1898), La conquista del reino de Maya (1897).

– Félix de AZÚA (1944-), Mansura (1984).

– Rafael SÁNCHEZ FERLOSIO (1927-2019), El testimonio de Yarfoz (1986).

– Juan ESLAVA GALÁN (1948-), En busca del unicornio (1987).

– Marcos Ricardo BARNATÁN (1946-), “Crónica de Isaac Bar Nathan”, in [El horóscopo de las infantas] (1988) and [La República de Mónaco] (2000).

– Avel·lí ARTÍS-GENER (1912-2000), Palabras de Opoton el viejo (1992).

– Juan GÓMEZ BÁRCENA (1984-), “Cuaderno de bitácora” – “Cuaderno de bitácora II”, in [Los que duermen y otros relatos] (2012).

– Nicolau Maria RUBIÓ I TUDURÍ (1891-1981), “Gzwrrawtzicxm”, in [Un crim abstracte o el jardiner assassinat] (1965).

– Avel·lí ARTÍS-GENER (1912-2000), Paraules d’Opòton el Vell (1968).

– Josep LOZANO (1948-), “El rei Turigi” (2010), in [Després de les tenebres i altres narracions] (2013).

– Maurice COUSIN, comte de Courchamps (¿1777?-1859), Souvenirs de la marquise de Créquy, 1710 à 1802 (1834-1836).

– Carlo ROSSI, Il racconto di un guardiano di spiaggia (1872).

MOCK HISTORIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTS (MOCK NEWS, MOCK JOURNALISTIC REPORTS, AND SIMILAR JOURNALISTIC AND ARCHIVE DOCUMENTS, PRESENTED UNELABORATED AS SUCH)

– P. H. COLOMB (1831-1899), The Great War of 189- (1892).

– Ambrose BIERCE (1842-¿1914?), “The Great Strike of 1895” (1895).

– John D. [Dawson] MAYNE (1828-1917), The Triumph of Socialism and How It Succeeded (1908).

– Philip GUEDALLA (1889-1944), “If the Moors in Spain Had Won” (1931).

– Ronald KNOX (1888-1957), “If the General Strike Had Succeeded” (1931).

– Hilaire BELLOC (1870-1953), “If Drouet’s Cart Had Stuck” (1931).

– Thornton WILDER (1897-1975), The Ides of March (1948).

– Various authors, [Preview of the War We Do Not Want] (1951).

– Anthony TOWNE, “God is Dead in Georgia” (1966), in Excerpts from the Diaries of the Late God (1968).

– David GERROLD (Jerrold David Friedman, 1944-), “How We Saved the Human Race”, in [With a Finger in My I] (1972).

– Whitley STRIEBER (1945-); James KUNETKA, Warday and the Journey Onward (1984).

– Jonathon PORRITT (1950-), The World We Made (2013).

– Miguel VALE DE ALMEIDA (1960-), “A Natureza Humana” (1999).

– Arturo LEZCANO (1939-), “Os mortos, en vivo”, in [Só os mortos soterram os seus mortos] (2001).

– Benito PÉREZ GALDÓS (1843-1920), “Crónicas futuras de Gran Canaria” (1866).

– [La Vanguardia: 28 de diciembre de 1989] (1889).

– José Luis GARCI (1944-), “Efemérides”, in [Bibidibabidibu] (1970) and [La Gioconda está triste y otras extrañas historias] (1976) // “Última crónica desde Houston”, in [La Gioconda está triste y otras extrañas historias] (1976).

– Francisco AYALA (1906-2009), [“Recortes del diario Las Noticias, de ayer”], in [El jardín de las delicias] (1971).

– Antonio LARRETA (1922-), Volavérunt (1980).

– Luis LÓPEZ NIEVES (1950-), “Seva” (1983).

– Óscar de LA BORBOLLA (1949-), “La emancipación de los locos”, “Los suicidas novedosos”, “Se acabó el futuro”, “Viva la inteligencia, muera la tele”, “Un nuevo partido político”, “¡Llueve sangre!”, “La puerta de la muerte”, “El gran descubrimiento”, “La ley de la compensación universal”, in [Ucronías] (1989).

– Javier FERNÁNDEZ (1971-), “Cero absoluto”, in Cero absoluto (2005).

– Antonio RÓMAR (1981-); Pablo MAZO AGÜERO (1977-), “Científicos y militares toman el control de los muertos de Castañar” (2014).

– Patrícia GABANCHO (1952-2017), Crònica de l’independència (2008).

– Paschal GROUSSET (1844-1909), Le Rêve d’un irréconciliable (1869).

– Auguste de VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM (1838-1889), “Le Couronnement de M. Grévy” (1887) / “La couronne présidentielle”, in [Chez les passants] (1889).

– Iwan GILKIN (1858-1924), “San Francisco’s Herald”, in Jonas (1900).

– *Les Ailes de la victoire (1913).

– Louis BAUDRY DE SAUNIER (1865-1938), *Comment Paris a été détruit en six heures le 20 avril 1924 (Le jour de Pâques) (1921).

– Nicolas Mª RUBIO (1891-1981), Le Réveil de l’Afrique (1936).

– Antoine BELLO (1970-), Éloge de la pièce manquante (1998).

– Benoît PEETERS (1956-), Les Portes du possible (2005).

– Jean-Pierre LAIGLE (Jean-Pierre MOUMON, 1947-), “Les Trouble-fête” (2008).

– Gérard de SENNEVILLE, “Les moustiques de Pissevaches”, in [Le Merveilleux Voyage en France d’Omar ben Alala et autres contes du futur] (2002) //“Nouvelles brèves”, “Changement de plaques”, “La politique littéraire commune (PCL)”, “Dopage dans la course à la Présidence”, in [Le Voyage en enfer d’Omar Ben Ali et autres contes du futur] (2011).

– Cornelius OMESCU (1936-2001), “Oamenii albaștri”, in [Întâmplări de necrezut (Parodii ştiinţifico-fantastice)] (1975) // [Lumea de poimâine: Știri din secolul 22] (1982).

ORAL HISTORY

– William TENN (1920-2010), “The Liberation of Earth” (1953), in [Of All Possible Worlds] (1955).

-Max BROOKS (1972-), World War Z (2006) // “Closure, Limited” (2010).

– Howard BURMAN, Gentlemen at the Bat: A Fictional Oral History of the New York Knickerbockers and the Early Days of Base Ball (2010).

– John SCALZI (1969-), “Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome” (2014).

– Òscar PÀMIES (1961-), [“Testimonis personals”] en [Com serà la fi del món] (1996).

– Camille MAUCLAIR (Camille Laurent Célestin Faust, 1872-1945), “La mort mécanique”, in [Les Clefs d’Or] (1897).

– Liviu RADU (1948-2015), Chestionar pentru doamne care au fost secretarele unor bărbaţi foarte cumsecade (2011).

SLIGHTLY NOVELISED FICTIONAL HISTORY

– Grant ALLEN (1848-1899), “The Empress of Andorra” (1878), in [Strange Stories] (1884).

– Mark TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910), The Secret History of Eddypus, the World-Empire [1901-1902], in [Fables of Man] (1972).

– E. [Elwyin] B. [Brooks] WHITE (1899-1985), “The Supremacy of Uruguay” (1933), in [Quo Vadimus or the Case for the Bicycle] (1939).

– William TENN (Philip Klass, 1920-2010), “The Masculinist Revolt” (1965), in [The Wooden Star] (1968).

– Mary GENTLE(1956-), Ash: A Secret History (1999).

– José María PEMÁN (1897-1981), “Historia del buen rey Totem” (1925), in [Cuentos sin importancia] (1926).

– Sergio RAMÍREZ (1942-), “Los graneros del Rey”, “La banda del Presidente”, in [Cuentos] (1963).

– Manuel MUJICA LÁINEZ (1910-1984), De milagros y melancolías (1968).

– Angélica GORODISCHER (1928-), “Acerca de ciudades que crecen descontroladamente”, in [Kalpa imperial] (1983).

– Eduardo Ladislao HOLMBERG (1852-1937), Olimpio Pitango de Monalia (1994 [1915]).

– Luis Antonio de VILLENA (1951-), Huesos de Sodoma (2004).

– Pau FANER (1949-), Potser només la fosca (1979).

– Anatole FRANCE (François Anatole Thibault, 1844-1924), L’Île des Pingouins (1908).

– Marcel THIRY (1897-1977), “Le concerto pour Anne Queur” (1949), in [Nouvelles du grand possible] (1960).

– Jacques PRÉVERT (1900-1977), Lettre des îles Baladar (1952).

– Sylvain JOUTY (1949-), “Queen Kong” (1994), in [Queen Kong] (2001).

– Toni BERTHER (1927-2015), “Ils ratuns vegnan” (1951/1955), in Carstgauns e ratuns (1983).

– Ursicin G. [Gion] G. [Gieli] DERUNGS (1935-), “Il papa che saveva buca crer en Diu” (1987), în [Il cavalut verd ed auter] (1988).

– Giovanni FERRUCCI, [Novelle atlantide] (1956).

– Nino FADDA (1940-), Pissighende su tempus benidore (2003).

– Ovid S. CROHMĂLNICEANU (Moise Cohn, 1921-2000), “Tratatul de la Neuhof”, in [Istorii insolite] (1980).

FICTIONAL HISTORY IN GERMAN (ALL TYPES)

– August NIEMANN (1839-1919), *Der Weltkrieg – Deutsche Träume (1904).

– Carl BLIEBTREU (1859-1928), *Die ‘Offensiv-Invasion’ gegen England (1907).

– Gustav Adolf MELCHERS, Der Vergangenheit unserer Zukunft? (1908).

– Adolf SOMMERFELD (1870-1931), Frankreichs Ende im Jahr 19?? (1912/1914).

– Max HEINRICHKA, *100 Jahre deutsche Zukunft (1913).

– FERENCZY Árpád (1877-1930), Timotheus Thümmel und seine Ameisen (1923).

– L. DETRE (Ladislaus Deutsch, 1874-1939), Kampf Zweier Welten (1935).

– Karl BRUGGER (1941-1985), Die Chronik von Akakor (1976).

– Wolfgang HILDESHEIMER (1916-1991), “1956 – Ein Pilzjahr”, in [Lieblose Legenden] (1952) // Marbot (1981).

SPECULATIVE JOURNALISTIC REPORT (REPORTAGE) in form of chronicles, interviews, witness reports, etc. combined by the journalist and told from his or her perspective

*: set in present times

– Whitley STRIEBER (1945-); James KUNETKA, Warday and the Journey Onward (1984).

– Afonso Henriques de LIMA BARRETO (1881-1922), *Os Bruzundangas (1923).

– Ramon COMAS I MADUELL (1935-1978), “L’evaporació”, in [Rescat d’ambaixadors] (1970).

– Jean JULLIEN (1854-1909), Enquête sur le monde futur (1909).

– Louis FOREST (1872-1933), *On vole des enfants à Paris (1909).

– Nicolas Mª RUBIO (1891-1981), Le Réveil de l’Afrique (1936).

GEOGRAPHIC AND ETHNOGRAPHIC SPECULATIVE DOCUMENTARY FICTION

It includes “urbogonies” or descriptions of imaginary cities

º: peoples from the archaeological past.

– Horace Mitchell MINER (1912-1993), “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (1956).

– Willard WALKER (1927-2009), “The Retention of Folk Linguistic Concepts and the ti’yčir Caste in Contemporary Nacireman Culture” (1970).

– Robert Alun JONES, “Myth and Symbol Among the Nacirema Tsigoloicos: A Fragment” (1975/1980).

– Ursula K. [Kroeber] LE GUIN (1929-2018), [“The Back of the Book”], in Always Coming Home (1985).

– Helene E. HAGAN (1939-), “The People of Niram” (1998), in [Fifty Years in America] (2013).

– Joel E. DIMSDALE, “The Nacirema Revisited” (2001).

– Benjamin ROSENBAUM (1969-), [Other Cities] (2003).

– FERREIRA GULLAR (José RIBAMAR FERREIRA, 1930-2016), [Cidades Inventadas] (1997).

– Octávio dos SANTOS (1965-), “Caminos de ferro”, in [Visões] (2003).

– Juan ITURRALDE Y SUIT (1840-1909), “La ínsula de los Penelópidas” (1892).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940), “La lotería en Babilonia” (1941), in [El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan] (1941) / [Ficciones] (1944) / “La secta del Fénix” (1952), in [Ficciones] (1956) // “El informe de Brodie”, in [El informe de Brodie] (1970) // “La secta de los Treinta”, in [El libro de arena] (1975).

– Miguel ESPINOSA (1926-1982), La filosofía política mandarinesca (1956).

– Cristóbal SERRA (1922-2012), Viaje a Cotiledonia (1965) – Retorno a Cotiledonia (1989).

– Héctor A. MURENA (1923-1975), “La evolución del trabajo”, in [El coronel de caballería y otros cuentos] (1971).

– Pedro GÓMEZ VALDERRAMA (1923-1992), “Los papeles de la Academia Utópica”, in [La procesión de los ardientes] (1973).

– René AVILÉS FABILA (1940-2016), “La importancia de ser mutilado”, in [La desaparición de Hollywood y otras sugerencias para principiar un libro] (1973) and [Fantasías en carrusel] (1978/1995/2001).

– Fernando DURÁN AYANEGUI (1939-), “Gloria in excelsis”, in [El benefactor y otros relatos] (1981).

– Ileana VICENTE [ARMENTEROS] (1946-), “Primer informe” (1981).

– Elia BARCELÓ (1957-), “Apuntes sobre el culto de la Dama Dragón”, in “La Dama Dragón” (1981), in [Sagrada] (1989).

– José FERRATER MORA (1912-1991), “Que trata de Corona, el país y los habitantes”, in Hecho en Corona (1986).

– Gloria MÉNDEZ (1969-), º“¿De dónde vienen los acosha?: Historia de un pueblo sin memoria”, º“Yad Hamrá: matrimonio y erótica acosha”, º“Los cram o el sistema Ana Kristeva”, in [El informe Kristeva] (1997).

– Federico JEANMAIRE (1957-), ºLos zumitas (1999).

– León ARSENAL (José Antonio Álvaro Garrido, 1960-), “Nota preliminar”, in Máscaras de matar (2004).

– Lola ROBLES (1963-), “Aanuk”, in El informe Monteverde (2005).

– Juan Ignacio FERRERAS (1929-2014), “La Nueva Era”, in La Gran Necrópolis (2006).

– Cristina PERI ROSSI (1941-), “Banderas”, “Suicidios S.A.”, “El patriotismo”, in [Cuentos reunidos] (2007).

– Sofía RHEI (Sofía GONZÁLEZ CALVO, 1978-), [Las ciudades reversibles] (2008).

– Mària Aurèlia CAPMANY (1918-1991), “Leviatan”, in [Com uma mà] (1958) / [Coses i noses] (1980).

– Nicolau Maria RUBIÓ I TUDURÍ (1891-1981), “Gzwrrawtzicxm”, in [Un crim abstracte o el jardiner assassinat] (1965).

– Mercè RODOREDA (1908-1983), [“Viatges a uns quants pobles”], in [Viatges i flors] (1980).

– Jordi GORT, [Extractes del manual de supervivencia estelar 3] (2014).

– Victor CONSIDÉRANT (1808-1893), Publication complète des nouvelles découvertes de Sir John Herschel dans le ciel austral et dans la Lune (1836).

– Paul VALÉRY (1871-1945), º“L’Île Xiphos” [1896], in [Histoires brisées] (1950).

– FRANC-NOHAIN (Maurice Étienne Legrand, 1873-1934), “Le Pays de l’Instar”, in [Le Pays de l’Instar] (1901).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), º“Origines du journal: L’Île des Diurnales”, in [Mœurs des Diurnales: Traité de journalisme] (1903; como Loyson-Bridet).

– Henri MICHAUX (1899-1984), Voyage en Grande Garabagne (1936), Au pays de la magie (1941), Ici, Poddema (1946), in [Ailleurs] (1948) // “La secret de la situation politique”, in [Face aux verrous] (1951/1967).

– Pierre BETTENCOURT (1917-2006), La planète Aréthuse (1969), L’Homme-million (1969), Le Roi des méduses (1984/1991), Voyage sur la planète innommée (1990), in [Histoire naturelle de l’imaginaire] (2007).

– Didier ANZIEU (1923-1999), “Les esquimaux et les songes”, in [Contes à rebours] (1975/1987/1995).

– Gilbert LASCAULT (1934-), Un Îlot tempéré (1977) // Encyclopédie abrégée de lEmpire Vert (1983).

– Alain NADAUD (1948-2015), “Exil en Grande-Scripturie”, in [Voyage au pays des bords du gouffre] (1984).

– Sylvain JOUTY (1949-), “Les dieux de l’Illusion”, in [La Visite au tombeau de mes ancêtres] (1995) // “Les démons du galet” (2000), “Les Veustes”, in [Queen Kong] (2001).

– Bernard SIMONAY (1951-), “Étude sur Gwondà et la Vallée des Neuf Cités”, en [La Vallée des Neuf Cités] (2007).

– Pierre JOURDE (1955-), Carnets d’un voyageur zulu dans les banlieues en feu (2007).

– Bernard QUIRINY (1978-), “Quiproquopolis (Comment parlent les Yapous)”, in [Contes cannibales] (2008) // [“Dix villes”], in [Une collection très particulière] (2012) // “La capitale décapitée” en [Histoires assassines] (2015).

– Tobie NATHAN (1948-), “Glossaire en code natif”, in [L’Étranger ou la part de l’autre] (2014).

– Reto CARATSCH (1901-1978), “Il pajais dal vacuna”, “Eviva l’amur!”, “Il pro da la faira litteraria”, “S-chet patagon”, “Spiert e mazurca”, in La renaschentscha dals Patagons (1949).

– Giovanni PAPINI (1881-1956), “Racconto dell’isola”, in [Gog] (1931) // “Il regno dei Karseni” (1941), “Armuria” (1942), “I figli del sole” (1942), in [Foglie della foresta] (1946) // “La città della gioia” (1949), “Una strana città”, in [Le pazzie del poeta] (1950) // “Ascenzia”, in [Il libro nero] (1951).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “L’isola” (1940), “La vita è un sogno” (1944), “Paese senza morte”, “Mamamel e Vusitel”, in [L’epidemia] (1944/1956) // “Città dei mobili” (1947).

– Augusto FRASSINETI (1911-1985), “Prima lettera”, in [Misteri dei Ministeri] (1952/1974).

– Dino BUZZATI (1906-1972), “Un popolo felice”, in [Siamo spiacenti di] (1960/1975).

– Umberto ECO (1932-), “Industria e repressione sessuale in una società padana”, in [Diario minimo] (1963/1975) // “Come presentare in TV” (1987), in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Lia WAINSTEIN (1919-2001), “Cittabella”, “Olindo Lindi: Viaggio in Drimonia”, in [Viaggio in Drimonia] (1965).

– Italo CALVINO (1923-1985), [Le città invisibili] (1972) // “Apologo sull’onestà nel paese dei corrotti” (1980).

– Gianni CELATI (1937-), Fata Morgana (1987-2005).

– Pavel VASICI (1806-1881), “Geografia țintirimului” (1840).

– Ştefan ZELETIN (1882-1934), Din Ţara Măgarilor. Însemnări (1916).

– Gheorghe SĂSĂRMAN (1941-), [Cuadratura cercului] (1975/2001).

– Mihail GRĂMESCU (1951-2014), “Felonia”, “Vânatorii de capete”, in [Aporisticon] (1981/2012).

ETHNOGRAPHIC REPORTS ON HUMANS WRITTEN BY NON-HUMAN SENTIENT SPECIES

– Stefan THEMERSON (1910-1988), Professor Mmaa’s Lecture (1953).

– Leó SZILÁRD (1898-1964), “Report on Grand Central Terminal” (1952), in [The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories] (1961).

– André MAUROIS (Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, 1885-1967), “La Vie des hommes”, in [Deux Fragments d’une histoire universelle 1992] (1928).

– Paul GABRIEL, Messages martiens (1956).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “La Peau d’un autre”, in [Rêveries d’un Martien en exil] (1976).

– Bernard WERBER (1961-), “Apprenons à les aimer”, in [L’Arbre des possibles et autres histoires] (2002) // Nos amis les Terriens, petit guide de découverte (2007).

– Arturo LEZCANO (1939-), “Peixes voadores non identificados” (1991), in [Os dados de Deus] (1994).

– Miguel VALE DE ALMEIDA (1960-), “O Relatório” (2000).

– Nilo María FABRA (1843-1903), “En el planeta Marte” (1890), in [Cuentos ilustrados] (1895).

– José María SALAVERRÍA (1873-1940), “El planeta prodigioso” / Un mundo al descubierto (1924/1929).

– José Luis SAMPEDRO (1917-2013), “Un caso de cosmoetnología: la religión hispánica” (1959), in [Mientras la tierra gira] (1993).

– Max AUB (1903-1972), “Manuscrito cuervo. Historia de Jacobo” (1952), in [Cuentos ciertos] (1955).

– Juan Pablo ORTEGA (1924-), Los terrícolas (1976).

– Josep SOLÉ NICOLÁS, “Noticias sensacionalistas” (1979).

– Jorge CAMPOS (Jorge RENALES FERNÁNDEZ, 1916-1983), *“Un astro muerto”, in [Bombas, astros y otras lejanías] (1992).

– Régis MESSAC (1893-1945), “De plus loin que Sirius.– Extraits du journal de recherches du physicien Blivit-Ornot, habitant du supermonde du 2e échelon” (1937).

– Giovanni PAPINI (1881-1956), “Primo rapporto dei marziani” (1950), in [La sesta parte del mondo] (1954).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “Primo rapporto sulla Terra dell’“inviato speciale””, in [L’epidemia] (1956).

– Mario SOLDATI (1906-1999), “Un’inchiesta di Alfa centauri” (1964).

– Primo LEVI (1919-1987), “Visto da lontano” (1967), in [Vizio di forma] (1971).

– Nichita STĂNESCU (1933-1983), “Dintr-un abecedar marțian”, In [Respirări] (1982).

– Vladimir COLIN (Jean Colin, 1921-1991), “Întâlnirea”, in [Dinţii lui Cronos] (1975).

MOCK TRAVEL GUIDES

– Rhoda BLUMBERG (1917-2016), The First Travel Guide to the Moon (1980).

– Santo CILAURO (1961-), Tom GLEISNER (1962-); Rob SITCH (1962-), Molvanîa: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry (2003) // Phaic Tăn: Sunstroke on a Shoestring (2004) // San Sombrèro: A Land of Carnivals, Cocktails and Coups (2006).

– Salvador ELIZONDO (1932-2006), “Los museos de Metaxiphos”, in [Camera lucida] (1983).

– Benoît PEETERS (1956-), Le Guide des cités (2002/2011).

– Gemelli RUGGERI (Luciano MANZALINI, 1952-; Eraldo TURRA, 1955-), Guida a Croda (1993).

FICTIONAL TOPOTHESIA

Fictions consisting in pure descriptions of imaginary buildings (including their interior and surroundings), as well as imaginary gardens and ruins. It can include human characters only to illustrate the conditions of habitation. Fictions are excluded in which the constructions only constitute the framework in which a story develops.

*: in verse.

– Antonio FLORES (1818-1865), “El árbol de la publicidad”, “El Gran Hotel de la Unidad Transatlántica”, in [Mañana, o la chispa eléctrica en 1899], third volumen of [Ayer, hoy y mañana, o la fe, el vapor y la electricidad] (1863).

– AZORÍN (José MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, 1873-1967), “La casa, la calle y el camino” (1904), in [Tiempos y cosas] (1944).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), “La biblioteca de Babel” (1941), in [El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan] (1941) / [Ficciones] (1944/1956).

– Salvador ELIZONDO (1932-2006), “Los museos de Metaxiphos”, in [Camera lucida] (1983).

– Pablo RODRÍGUEZ BURÓN (1980-), “La casa de la memoria”, in Turistia (2016).

– Victor CONSIDERANT (1808-1893), Description du phalanstère (1848).

– Léon DIERX (1838-1912), *“La ruine”, in [Les Lèvres closes] (1879).

– Theo CANDINAS (1929-), “Descripziun d’in stabiliment”, in [Entagls] (1974).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “Città dei mobili” (1947).

– Alexandru MACEDONSKI (1854-1920), “Palatul fermecat” (1881) / “Palatul fermecat”, in [Cartea de aur] (1902/1973).

FICTIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND RELATED TEXTS

– “The Book of Oatiati” (1873).

– Andrew LANG (1844-1912), “The Great Gladstone Myth” (1886), in [In the Wrong Paradise and Other Stories] (1886).

– Leó SZILÁRD (1898-1964), “Report on Grand Central Terminal” (1952), in [The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories] (1961).

– Robert NATHAN (1894-1985), “Digging the Weans” (1956) – “A Further Report on the Weans” (1959) / The Weans (1960).

– Serafín ADAME MUÑOZ (1828-1875), Napoleón no ha existido jamás (1850).

– Gonzalo MARTRÉ (Mario Trejo González, 1928-), “Los antiguos mexicanos a través de sus ruinas y sus vestigios” (2001).

– Jean-Baptiste PÉRÈS (1752-1840), Comme quoi Napoléon n’a jamais existé ou Grand Erratum, source d’un nombre infini d’errata à noter dans l’histoire du XIXe siècle (1827).

– Alfred FRANKLIN (1830-1917), Mœurs et coutumes des Parisiens en 1880. Cours professé au Collège de France pendant le second semestre de l’année 3882 par Alfred Mantien, professeur d’archéologie transcendante (1882).

– Albert MILLAUD (1844-1892), “La statue de Gambetta en l’an 2000” (1888).

– Gaston de PAWLOWSKI (1874-1933), “Curiosités historiques.– Usages, mœurs et coutumes du siècle dernier” (1901).

– Étienne JOLICLER, “Chronique en l’an 2001” (1902).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), “Origines du journal: L’Île des Diurnales”, in [Mœurs des Diurnales: Traité de journalisme] (1903; as Loyson-Bridet).

– Louis LOTTIN (1880-1916), “Le Trésor des pierres”, in [Lyon en l’an 2000] (1911).

– Régis MESSAC (1893-1945), “Fragments du journal d’Acapsu, technicien de l’an 3340” (1932) // “Couronne de perles et croix de bois.– Extraits des papiers de CB2/1!=WRNZ, préhistorien de l’an 10.033” (1933).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “SPQR”, in [Racconti impossibili] (1966).

– Tudor ARGHEZI (Ion N. Theodorescu, 1880-1967), “În preistorie”, in [Tablete din Ţara de Kuty] (1933).

– Vladimir COLIN (Jean Colin, 1921-1991), “Postfață”, in [Legendele Țării lui Vam] (1961).

FICTIONAL MYTHOGRAPHY

Fictional mythographies are mythopoetic creations imitating the form of prose mythographical reports. Since they are fictional, invented mythologies that are really intended to be inspired by the deity with a view to fostering a religion are excluded. Mitographies presented as translations from any alleged oral tradition coming from existing peoples are also included, even if the original text of the oral myths in the original language has not been transcribed. Theological and scientific-like myths are also excluded.

Mitographic discourse is characterized by the predominance of narrativity, which is always heterodiegetic. It is a kind of historiographical narrative, since mythology constitutes a sacred history, although the mythological narrative admits a greater rhetorical decoration and does not exclude narrative omniscience, although this is generally limited. By the nature of its discourse, mythography excludes monologues and novelistic conversations. Its characters are gods, demigods and humans in direct contact with them.

– Lord DUNSANY (1878-1957), [The Gods of Pegāna] (1905).

– J. R. R. TOLKIEN (1892-1973), [The Silmarillion] (1977).

– Ursula K. LE GUIN (1929-2018), “Beginnings”, in Always Coming Home (1985).

– Tudor ARGHEZI (1880-1967), “Bătrânii Insulei de Aur” (1925) / “Bătrânii din insula”, in [Cartea cu jucării] (1931/1943) / [Ce-ai cu mine, vântule?] (1937).

– Mihai MĂNIUŢIU (1954-), “Un zeu aproape muritor”, in [Un zeu aproape muritor] (1982).

– Gianni CELATI (1937-), “La tenda del cielo”, in [Fata Morgana] (1987-2005).

– Henri MICHAUX (1899-1984), [Fables des origines] (1923).

– Pompeu GENER (1848-1920), “Una teogonia índia” (1901) / “Antic poem del Indostan (Una teogonia vishnuita)”, in [Pensant, sentint i rient] (1911).

– SALARRUÉ (Salvador Salazar Arrué, 1899-1975), [O’Yarkandal] (1929).

– Gabriel CELAYA (1911-1991), “Origen”, in Tentativas (1946).

– Víctor CONDE (Alfredo Moreno Santana, 1973-), “Mitos y leyendas”, in [La Orfíada] (2017).

– Roberto GONZÁLEZ-QUEVEDO (1953-), “L’aniciu de los dioses ya de las cousas”, in [Hestoria de la l.literatura primera en Pesicia] (2014).

– Vladimir COLIN (Jean Colin, 1921-1991), “Postfață”, in [Legendele Țării lui Vam] (1961).

FICTIONAL COSMOGONIES

Ethnographical accounts of existing mythologies are excluded. Also works in German.

MYTHOLOGICAL COSMOGONIES

*: literary mythographic rewriting of existing cosmogonies.

Prose

– Lord DUNSANY (1878-1957), [The Gods of Pegāna] (1905).

– J. R. R. TOLKIEN (1892-1973), “Ainulindalë”, in [The Silmarillion] (1977).

– Ursula K. LE GUIN (1929-2018), “Beginnings”, in Always Coming Home (1985).

– Gustavo Adolfo BÉCQUER (1836-1870), *“La creación” (1861).

– José ANTICH, “Ilusión”, in Andrógino (1904).

– AZORÍN (José MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, 1873-1967), “Leopardi”, in [Fantasías y devaneos] (1920)

– SALARRUÉ (Salvador Salazar Arrué, 1899-1975), “Alm-a”, in [O’Yarkandal] (1929).

– Gabriel CELAYA (1911-1991), “Origen”, in Tentativas (1946).

– Miguel Ángel ASTURIAS (1899-1974), “Los brujos de la tormenta primaveral”, in [Leyendas de Guatemala], 2.ª edición (1948).

– Mario VARGAS LLOSA (1936-), *El hablador (1987).

– Roberto GONZÁLEZ-QUEVEDO (1953-), “L’aniciu de los dioses ya de las cousas”, in [Hestoria de la l.literatura primera en Pesicia] (2014).

– Pompeu GENER (1848-1920), “Una teogonia índia” (1901) / “Antic poem del Indostan (Una teogonia vishnuita)”, in [Pensant, sentint i rient] (1911).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), *“Vie de Morphiel démiurge” (1895).

– Henri MICHAUX (1899-1984), [Fables des origines] (1923).

– Olivier de BOUVEIGNES (Léon Guébels, 1889-1966), *“La création et les premiers jours du monde”, in [Contes d’Afrique] (1927).

– Jean-Pierre OTTE (1949-), *[Les aubes enchantées] (1994).

– Giacomo LEOPARDI (1798-1737), “Storia del genere umano” [1824], in [Operette morali] (1827).

– Vincenzo CARDARELLI (1887-1959), *[Favole della Genesi] (1919-1920/1925).

– Anna BONACCI (1892-1981), *“Genesi” (1939).

– Gianni CELATI (1937-), “La tenda del cielo”, in [Fata Morgana] (1987/2005).

– Ion DRAGOSLAV (Ion Ivanciuc, 1875-1928), *[Facerea lumii] (1908/1925).

Verse

– Rudolf PANNWITZ (1881-1969), Das Lied vom Elen (1919).

– Holly Dworken COOLEY, “A Creation Myth” (2008).

– GUERRA JUNQUEIRO (1850-1923), *“O génesis”, in [A velhice do Padre Eterno] (1885).

– Raul BOPP (1898-1984), *“Princípio” (1946), in [Poesias] (1947) and [Cobra Norato e outros poemas] (1951).

– Juan AROLAS (1805-1849), *“La creación” (1841), in [Poesías] (1842).

– Augusto ROA BASTOS (1917-2005), *[El génesis de los guaraníes] (1948).

– Miguel Ángel ASTURIAS (1899-1974), Clarivigilia primaveral (1965).

– Jorge GUILLÉN (1893-1984), *“Creador y creación”, in [Y otros poemas] (1973).

– Llorenç RIBER (1881-1958), *“L’obra dels sis dies” (1904), in [Al sol alt] (1949).

– Charles Marie René LECONTE DE LISLE (1818-1894), *“La légende des Nornes” (1858), in [Poésies barbares] (1862) / *“La Genèse polynésienne” (1857), in [Poèmes barbares] (1872/1878).

– André de GUERNE (1853-1912), *“Les Créations d’Ahoûra-Mazdâ”, in [L’Orient antique] (1890).

– Auguste GÉNIN (1862-1931), *“La Genèse aztèque”, in [Poèmes aztèques] (1890) / [Légendes et récits du Mexique ancien] (1922).

– Maurice BOUCHOR (1855-1929), *“La Terre et l’Amour”, in [Les Symboles] (1888).

– Maurice OLIVAINT (1860-1929), *“Taaroa”, in [Fleurs de corail] (1900).

– Alexis KAGAME (1912-1981), *[La Divine Pastorale] (1952-1955).

– François BROUSSE (1913-1995), *“Genèse hindoue” (1956), in [Le Rire des dieux] (2006).

– Christine HARDY, “Conte d’Il”, in [Paysages d’infini] (1983).

– Giuseppe UNGARETTI (1888-1970), *[Favole indie della Genesi] (1946).

THEOLOGICAL COSMOGONIES

Prose

– John Ballou NEWBROUGH (1828-1891), Oahspe (1882/1891).

– Eric Frank RUSSELL (1905-1978), “Sole Solution” (1956), in [Dark Tides] (1962).

– Benigno Baldomero LUGONES (1857-1884), “Isis” (1881).

+ Enrique ANDERSON IMBERT (1910-2000), “Caos y creación”, in [El gato de Cheshire] (1965).

– Jorge CAMPOS (Jorge Renales Fernández, 1916-1983), “El Ser, el Dios, el Todo” (1973), in [Bombas, astros y otras lejanías] (1992).

– Juan Pedro APARICIO (1941-), “Dios”, in [La mitad del diablo] (2006).

– Òscar PÀMIES (1961-), “La creació del món», in [Com serà la fi del món] (1996).

– George SAND (Aurore Dupin, 1804-1876), “Le Poème de Myrza” (1835).

– Renée VIVIEN (Pauline Mary Tarn, 1877-1909), “La Genèse profane”, in [Brumes de fjords] (1902).

– Han RYNER (1861-1938), “Sacrifices” (1902), in [Les Voyages de Psychodore, philosophe cynique] (1903) / “La dernières parabole” (1906), in [Les Paraboles cyniques] (1912).

– Didier ANZIEU (1923-1999), “Dieu créa la femme”, “Un sommeil divin”, in [Contes à rebours] (1975/1987/1995).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “Les origines”, in Vies parallèles de Roman Branchu (1978) // “Mésaventures de Dieu», in [La Rose réaliste] (1985).

– Jean d’ORMESSON (1925-2017), Dieu, sa vie, son œuvre (1981).

– Vincenzo CARDARELLI (Nazareno Caldarelli, 1887-1959), “Il fuoco” (1919), in [Favole della Genesi] (1919-1921) / [Favole e memorie] (1925).

– Ion PILLAT (1891-1945), “Oglinda” (1922).

– Tudor ARGHEZI (1880-1967), “Geneza și apocalipsa”, in [Ce-ai cu mine, vântule?] (1937) // “Uriașii”, in [Cartea cu jucării] (1943).

Verse

– Ian WATSON (1943-), “Let There Be Darkness: An Origin Myth”, in [The Lexicographer’s Love Song and Other Poems] (2001).

– Antero de QUENTAL (1842-1891), “Fiat lux!” [1863], in [Raios de extinta luz] (1892).

– José FERNÁNDEZ BREMÓN (1839-1910), “El Bien y el Mal” (1868).

– Àngel GUIMERÀ (1845-1924), “Creació”, in [Segon llibre de poesies] (1920).

– Gustave de LANOUE (1812-1838), “Éden ou la création”, in [Énosh] (1837).

– Sully PRUDHOMME (René François Armand Prudhomme, 1839-1907), Les Destins (1872).

– Edmond HARAUCOURT (1856-1941), “Le coït des atomes”, in [La Légende des sexes] (1882; as Edmond de Chambley) / “Les atomes”, in [L’Âme nue] (1885).

– Jean RICHEPIN (1849-1926), “Le mystère de la création”, in [Les Blasphèmes] (1884).

– Jean RAMEAU (Laurent Labaigt, 1858-1942), “La légende de la Terre”, in [La vie et la mort] (1886).

– Niccolò TOMMASEO (1802-1874), “Il germe dei mondi”, in [Poesie] (1872).

– Alexandru MACEDONSKI (1854-1920), “Creaţiunea” (1874).

SCIENTIFIC COSMOGONIES (WRITTEN AS LITERATURE, NOT PUBLISHED AS PAPERS IN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS)

Prose

– Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849), Eureka (1848).

– Joaquín BARTRINA (1850-1880), “La formación del mundo” (1870).

– Augusto GONZÁLEZ DE LINARES (1845-1904), La vida de los astros (1878).

– Gregorio MARTÍNEZ SIERRA (María de la O LEJÁRRAGA, 1874-1974), “Lucha eterna”, in [El poema del trabajo] (1898).

– Leopoldo LUGONES (1874-1938), “Ensayo de una cosmogonía en diez lecciones”, in [Las fuerzas extrañas] (1906).

– Nuria AMAT (1950-), “Big bang”, in [Monstruos] (1991).

– Edgar QUINET (1803-1875), La Création (1870).

– Auguste BLANQUI (1805-1881), L’Éternité par les astres (1872).

– Étienne KLEIN (1958-), Discours sur l’origine de l’univers (2010).

– Giacomo LEOPARDI (1798-1837), “Frammento apocrifo di Stratone da Lampsaco”, in [Operette morali] (1845 [1825]).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “Da: L’astronomia esposta al popolo. Nozioni d’astronomia sideronebulare”, in [Il mare delle blatte e altre storie] (1939).

Verse

– Mathilde BLIND (Mathilde Cohen, 1841-1896), “Chaunts of Life”, in [The Ascent of Man] (1888).

– Grant ALLEN (1848-1899), “A Ballade of Evolution”, in [The Lower Slopes] (1894).

– James E. GUNN (1923-), “Imagine”, in The Listeners (1972).

– Teófilo BRAGA (1843-1924), “O firmamento”, in “A filosofia”, in en [Miragens seculares] (1884) / [Visão dos tempos] (1894-1895).

– Haroldo de CAMPOS (1929-2003), A Máquina do Mundo Repensada (2000).

– Ricardo MACÍAS PICAVEA (1847-1899), Kosmos (1872).

– Luis TAPIA, “El origen de la Tierra” (1896).

– Carlos FERRER (1845-1919), “Cosmogonía», in [El universo] (1900).

– José LÓPEZ MONTENEGRO (1832-1908), “La Naturaleza”, in [El botón de fuego] (1902).

– Ernesto CARDENAL (1925-), [Cántico cósmico] (1989).

– Louis BOUILHET (1822-1869), Les Fossiles (1854).

– Jules LEFÈVRE-DEUMIER (1797-1857), “Formation de la Terre”, in [Le Couvre-feu] (1857).

– Edmond EMERICH, La Création du globe terrestre (1860).

– CLAIRVILLE (Louis-François Nicolaïe, 1811-1879), “Le Monde antédiluvien” (1863), in [Le Caveau] (1864).

– Émile LITTRÉ (1801-1881), “La Terre” (1867).

– Ernest COTTY (1818-1877), “Antédiluviana” (1875).

– Jules ARBELOT, La Création et l’humanité (1882).

– Henri WARNERY (1859-1902), “Les Origines”, in [Poésies] (1887).

– René GHIL (René Guilbert, 1862-1925), Le Meilleur Devenir (1889).

– J. de STRADA (Gilles Gabriel Delarue, 1821-1902), La Genèse universelle (1890).

– André JOUSSAIN (1880-1969), L’Épopée terrestre (1926-1934-1958).

– Jean CHAMARD (1843-1915), L’Épopée des âges [1874-1879] (1947).

– Marthe DUPUY (1871-1958), “L’Origine du monde”, “Évolution”, in [Au fond des abîmes] (1950).

– Raymond QUENEAU (1903-1976), Petite Cosmogonie portative (1950).

– Robert GOFFIN (1898-1984), [Sablier pour une cosmogonie] (1965).

– Maurice COUQUIAUD (1930-), [Un profil de buée] (1980).

– Cleant SPIRESCU, Cosmos sau cântarea stelelor (1935).

– Adrian ROGOZ (1921-1996), “Miza unei recreaţii”, in [Inima rezistentă] (1981).

COSMIC VISION

From Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis to Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker: The visionary cosmic voyage as a speculative genre

Stapledon’s Star Maker is an outstanding modern example of a particular genre, the visionary cosmic voyage. In this kind of a literature of a rather descriptive nature, the author usually tells of his/her dream or vision of the universe, depicted according to the scientific knowledge of the time, in order to convey a philosophical and/or astronomical cosmic view. This genre has its origin in the Cicero’s influential Somnium Scipionis. After its allegorical and religious/supernatural imitations throughout the Middle Ages and later on, Kepler’s Somnium adopted a secular protoscience-fictional approach to the genre, the same that Stapledon subsequently embraced. Between these two visionary cosmic voyagers stand several canonical writers who have followed the Ciceronian taproot text to create impressive visions of the universe. Star Maker falls within this tradition, having brought it to its culmination in both ambition and scope, while remaining faithful to Cicero’s and to his best followers’ pattern as to the literary exploitation of the sublime. Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis is, thus, to be considered one of the main ancient forerunners to speculative fiction, due to its status as founder of the visionary cosmic voyage, and to the science-fictional sublime.

*: in verse.

– James HOGG (1770-1835), *The Pilgrims of the Sun (1815).

– Sir Humphrey DAVY (1778-1829), “The Vision”, in [Consolations in Travel, or The Last Days of A Philosopher] (1830).

– Thomas Lake HARRIS (1823-1906), *An Epic of the Starry Heaven (1855).

– James DE MILLE (1833-1880), *Behind the Veil (1893).

– A. E. (George William Russell, 1867-1935), “The Story of a Star” (1894), in [Imaginations and Reveries] (1915).

– H. [Herbert] G. [George] WELLS (1866-1946), “Under the Knife” (1896), in [The Plattner Story and Others] (1897).

– William Shuler HARRIS (1865-?), Life in a Thousand Worlds (1905).

– Clark Ashton SMITH (1893-1961), *“The Star-Trader”, in [The Star-Trader and Other Poems] (1912) // *“The Hashish-Eater; or The Apocalypse of Evil”, in [Ebony and Crystal] (1922).

– H. [Howard] P. [Phillips] LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), *“Aletheia Phrikodes”, in The Poe-et’s Nightmare (1916) (V.).

– Fletcher PRATT (1897-1956), “The Roger Bacon Formula” (1929).

– Olaf STAPLEDON (1886-1950), Star Maker (1937).

– João LÚCIO (1880-1918), *“No caminho infinito”, en [Na Asa do Sonho] (1913).

– Enéas LINTZ (1892-?), Há Dez Mil Séculos (1926).

– Pedro CASTERA (1846-1906), “Un viaje celeste” (1872) / “Un viaje celestial”, in [Impresiones y recuerdos] (1882).

– Carlos MESÍA DE LA CERDA (1825-1919), “El hombre de cristal”, in [El saquillo de mi abuela] (1875).

– Carlos Octavio BUNGE (1875-1918), “Viaje a través de la estirpe”, in [Viaje a través de la estirpe y otras narraciones] (1908).

– Amado NERVO (1870-1919), *“Yo estaba en el espacio”, in [En voz baja] (1909).

– Dr. ATL (Gerardo Murillo, 1875-1964), Un hombre más allá del universo (1935).

– Valentí ALMIRALL (1841-1904), “Un manuscrit de savi o de boig” (como Thales; 1880).

– G. DESCOTTES, Voyage dans les planètes et découverte des véritables destinées de l’homme (1864).

– Camille FLAMMARION (1842-1925), “Lumen”, in [Récits de l’infini] (1872) / Lumen (1887) // “Voyage dans le ciel”, in [Rêves étoiles] (1888).

– Edmond HARAUCOURT (1856-1941), *“L’étape”, in [L’âme nue] (1885).

– Jean RAMEAU (1858-1942), *“Rêve”, in [La vie et la mort] (1886).

– Joseph MAGGINI, *“Vision de bonheur”, in [La voix du souvenir] (1934).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “Voyage nocturne”, in [La rose réaliste] (1985).

– Giulio GIANELLI (1879-1914), *“Vita nello spazio” (1912), in [Poesie] (1934).

– Giovanni BOTTINELLI, Fantasie cosmiche (1938).

FICTIONAL SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

(texts of a literary nature using the discourse of mathematics and natural sciences, in English, German, or any Romance language; except publications in scientific journals, parodic or not, called “spoof papers”)

Scientific spoof papers as a literary and fictional genre encompass the works where fantastical content is infused into any text that methodically and consistently presents the standard rhetorical features of the scientific discourse usual in real scientific practice, especially in the natural sciences, thus achieving literariness through fictionalization. A representative example of this genre are the papers by Isaac Asimov on the imaginary molecule called thiotimoline, which can be seen as central in a long historical series of works belonging to this discursive genre from Gustav Fechner in the 19th century to contemporary authors. Among them, there are a number of writers known for their absurdist and fantastical works, such as Alfred Jarry, Tommaso Landolfi, Giorgio Manganelli, Georges Saunders, etc.

Natural sciences (including Psychology):

– Augustus C. Fotheringam (Lester W. SHARP, 1887-1961; Cuthbert Bancroft FRASER), Eoörnis Pterovelox Gobiensis (1926).

– Isaac ASIMOV (1920-1992), “The Marvellous Properties of Thiotimoline” (1948-1952), in [Only a Trillion] (1957) // “Thiotimoline and the Space Age” (1960), in [Opus 100] (1969).

– Mark CLIFTON (1906-1963), “The Dread Tomato Addiction” (1958).

– Mark EPERNAY (John Kenneth GALBRAITH, 1908-2006), “The McLandress Dimension” (1962), in [The McLandress Dimension] (1963).

– J. [James] G. [Graham] BALLARD (1930-2009), “Love and Napalm: Export USA”, in [The Atrocity Exhibition] (1970).

– J. [Jeremy] H. [Halvard] PRYNNE (1936-), “The Plant Time Manifold Transcripts” (1975), in [Poems] (1999).

– Thomas A. EASTON (1944-), “The Chicago Plan to Save a Species” (1976).

– Peter DICKINSON (1927-2015), The Flight of Dragons (1979).

– George PEREC (1936-1982), “Experimental Demonstration of the Tomatotopic Organisation in the Soprano (Cantatrix sopranica L.)” (1980).

– Dougal DIXON (1947-), After Man: A Zoology of the Future (1981) // The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution (1988).

– Steve JACKSON; Ian LIVINGSTONE, Out of the Pit (1985).

– Harry HARRISON (1925-2012), [“The World West of Eden”], in [Return to Eden] (1988).

– Frederick POHL (1919-2013), “Scientific American: ‘Martian Polar Wanderings’”, in The Day the Martians Came (1988).

– Jeff VANDERMEER (1968-); Mark ROBERTS, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases (2003).

– Dugald STEER (1965-), Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons (2003).

– George SAUNDERS (1958-), “93990”, in [In Persuasion Nation] (2006).

– Dr. Mises (Gustav Theodor FECHNER, 1801-1887), “Beweis, dass der Mond aus Jodine bestehe” (1821), “Öffentliche Sitzung am 1. Juli 1861 über den seitlichen Fenster- und Kerzenversuch” (1821), [“Stapelia mixta”] (1824), “Vergleichende Anatomie der Engel” (1825), [“Vier Paradoxa]” (1846), in [Kleine Schriften] (1875).

– Egon FRIEDELL (1878-1938), “Ist die Erde bewohnt?” (1931).

– Harald Stümpke (Gerolf STEINER, 1908-2009), Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia (1957).

– Óscar de LA BORBOLLA (1949-), “Informe ucrónico” (1993).

– David ROAS (1965-), “El Hipocrondrio”, in [Horrores cotidianos] (2007).

– Javier FERNÁNDEZ (1971-), “Condiciones que inhiben el discernimiento”, in [La grieta] (2007).

– Vicenç PAGÈS JORDÀ (1963-), “Puella gerundensis” (1996), “Gnocchis”, in [El poeta i altres contes] (2005) / [Exorcismes] (2018).

– Alfred JARRY (1873-1907), “‘Commentaires pour servir à la construction pratique de la machine à voyager dans le temps’ par le Dr. Faustroll” (1899) // “Cynégétique de l’omnibus” (1901), “De quelques animaux nuisibles: le volant” (1902), “Les mœurs des noyés” (1902), in [Spéculations] (1911).

– Camille MAUCLAIR (Camille Laurent Célestin Faust, 1872-1945), “Vie des Elfes”, in [Les Danaïdes] (1903) / [Le mystère du visage] (1906).

– George PEREC (1936-1982), “Mise en évidence expérimentale d’une organisation tomatotopique chez la soprano (Cantatrix sopranica L.)” (1980), “Distribution spatio-temporelle de Coscinoscera Victoria, Coscinoscera Tigrata Carpenteri, Coscinoscera Punctata Barton & Coscinoscera Nigrostriata d’Iputupi” (1980).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “Da: L’astronomia esposta al popolo. Nozioni d’astronomia sideronebulare”, in [Il mare delle blatte e altre storie] (1939) // “Formula della pazienza; Chiasma de la timidezza” (1941) / “La pazienza; la timidezza” (1977), in [Diario perpetuo] (2012) // “Da: La melotecnica esposta al popolo”, “Nuove rivelazioni della psiche umana. L’uomo di Mannheim. (Relazione letta alla Reale Accademia delle Scienze dall’on. Onisammot Iflodnal, azerbeigiano)”, in [La spada] (1942).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “L’epidemia” (1941), in [L’epidemia] (1944/1956).

– Augusto FRASSINETI (1911-1985), “Prime Conclusioni intorno allo studio della Ministerialità”, in [Misteri dei Ministeri] (1952/1974).

– Primo LEVI (1919-1987), “Cladonia rapida” (1964), in [Storie naturali] (1966).

– Leo LIONNI (1910-1999), La botanica parallela (1976).

– Giorgio PRODI (1928-1987), “L’evoluzione degli animali a penna”, in [Il neutrone borghese] (1980).

– Giorgio MANGANELLI (1922-1990), “Discorso sulla difficoltà di comunicare coi morti”, in [Agli dèi ulteriori] (1989).

– Luigi MALERBA (1927-2008), “Appunti e frammenti per un trattato sugli alberi e sui suoni da essi prodotti”, in [Consigli inutili] (2014).

– Nicolae STEINHARDT (1912-1989), “Cazuri de isterie la sugacii de azi”, in [În genul… tinerilor] (1932).

– Romulus DINU (1921-), “Boala de decongelare (Apatia criogenetică)”, in […dintr-o lume congelată şi… false ficţiuni] (1980).

– Mircea BĂDUŢ (1967-), “Exerciţiu de ciclicitate”, in [Ficţiuni secunde] (2016).

Formal sciences:

*: Linguistics

– Lewis CARROLL (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898), The New Method of Evaluation, as Applied to π (1865), The Dynamics of a Parti-cle (1865), in [Notes by an Oxford Chiel] (1874).

– George ORWELL (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950), *“The Principles of Newspeak”, in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

– C. [Charles] F. [Francis] HOCKETT (1916-2000), *“How to Learn Martian” (1955), in [The View from Language: Selected Essays 1948-1974] (1977).

– J. [John] R. [Reginald] R. [Reuel] TOLKIEN (1892-1973), *“Writing and Spelling”, in The Lord of the Rings (1967).

– Willard WALKER (1927-2009), *“The Retention of Folk Linguistic Concepts and the ti’yčir Caste in Contemporary Nacireman Culture” (1970).

– Ursula K. [Kroeber] LE GUIN (1929-2018), ““The Author of the Acacia Seeds” and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics” (1974), in [The Compass Rose] (1982).

– Harry MATHEWS (1930-), *“Remarks of the Scholar Graduate”, in [Country Cooking and Other Stories] (1980).

– Modesto LAFUENTE (1806-1866), “Estadística real”, in [Teatro social del siglo XIX] (1846).

– Lola ROBLES (1963-), *“Sobre el campo semántico de los colores en el idioma aanukien”, *“Sobre la metáfora aanukien y fihdia”, in El informe Monteverde (2005).

– Paul THÉDORE-VIBERT (1851-1918), *“Prononciation antique”, in [Pour lire en automobile] (1901).

– Alfred JARRY (1873-1907), “De la surface de Dieu”, in Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien [1898-1899] (1911).

– Raymond QUENEAU (1903-1976), “Quelques remarques sommaires relatives aux propriétés aérodynamiques de l’addition” (1950) // *“De quelques langages animaux imaginaires et notamment du langage chien dans Sylvie et Bruno” (1971).

– Boris VIAN (1920-1959), “Mémoire concernant le calcul numérique de Dieu par des méthodes simples et fausses” (1977 [1955]).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), *“Qualche discorso sull’L.I.” (1941) / “Volete imparare questo alfabeto?” (1978), in [Diario perpetuo] (2012).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “Dell’impossibilità di costruire la carta dell’imperio 1 a 1”, “The Wom”, “Come falsificare Eraclito”, “Il teorema degli ottocento colori”, in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Ion Luca CARAGIALE (1852-1912), “Statistică” (1893), in [Schiţe uşoare] (1896).

FANTASTIC BESTIARIES since 1900

Fantastic bestiaries are fictions consisting in non-scientific descriptions of imaginary beings (plants, animals, minerals).

– Woody ALLEN (Allan Stewart Königsberg, 1935-), “Fabulous Tales and Mythic Beasts”, in [Without Feathers] (1975).

– J. [Joanne] K. ROWLING (1965-), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001; as by Newt Scamander).

– John Henry FLEMING, Fearsome Creatures of Florida (2009).

– Ursula K. LE GUIN (1929-2018), “Elementals” (2012).

– Álvaro CUNQUEIRO (1911-1981), [“Novidades do mundo e fauna máxica”], in [Escola de menciñeiros e fábula de varia xente] (1960).

– Wilson BUENO (1949-2010), Jardim zoológico (1999).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986); Margarita GUERRERO, [Manual de zoología fantástica] (1957) / [El libro de los seres imaginarios] (1967/1969).

– Rafael CASTELLANO, “Especies extinguidas: el plumiferus melancolicus” (1965).

– Juan PERUCHO (1920-2003), [Botánica oculta o el falso Paracelso] (1969) // [“Lapidario portátil”], in [Historias secretas de balnearios] (1972) // [Bestiario fantástico] (1977).

– ÁLVARO CUNQUEIRO (1911-1981), “Diccionario manual de bestias marinas” (1972).

– Joan FONTCUBERTA (1955-), “El cocatrix” (1997).

– José Luis SAMPEDRO (1917-2013), “Aviso contra la dañina bestia el Antromóvil donde se revelan sus disfrazadas artes y satánicos fines” (1997).

– Felipe BENÍTEZ REYES (1960-), “El hadillo (1983), “Aldac”, in [Un mundo peligroso] (1994) and [Oficios estelares] (2009).

– Rafael PÉREZ ESTRADA (1934-2000), [Bestiario de Livermoore] (1988).

– Antón CASTRO (Antonio RODRÍGUEZ CASTRO, 1959-), [Bestiario aragonés] (1991).

– Gustavo MARTÍN GARZO (1948-), “El borrador doméstico” (1995).

– Luis MATEO DÍEZ (1942-), “El ladril” (1995).

– Eduardo MENDICUTTI (1948-), “El palabrero” (1995).

– José María MERINO (1941-), “Gamusino doméstico” (1995).

– Soledad PUÉRTOLAS (1947-), “El guerrero amistoso” (1995).

– Raúl GONZÁLVEZ DEL ÁGUILA, [“Bestiario”] (1999).

– Ángel OLGOSO (1961-), “Almanaque de asombros”, in [Granada 2039 y otros relatos] (1999).

– Jesús CALLEJO, [Bestiario mágico] (2001).

– Jordi DOCE (1967-), [Bestiario del nómada] (2001).

– Óscar SIPÁN (1974-), [Leyendario] (2004).

– Juan Jacinto MUÑOZ RENGEL (1974-), “Bestiario secreto en el London Zoo”, in [88 Mill Lane] (2005).

– Francisco FERRER LERÍN (1942-), [Bestiario] (2007).

– Mercè RODOREDA (1908-1983), [“Flors de debò”], in [Viatges i flors] (1980).

– Joan PERUCHO (1920-2003), [Botánica oculta o el fals Paracels] (1980) // [Petit museu de monstres marins] (1981) // [Monstruari fantàstic] (1984).

– Pere CALDERS (1912-1994), “Refinaments d’ultramar”, in [Invasió subtil i altres contes] (1978).

– Alfred JARRY (1873-1907), “Cynégétique de l’omnibus” (1900-1901).

– Jean DESS (HIXE), [“D’une certaine faune”], in [Pour lire en parachute] (1932).

– Henri MICHAUX (1899-1984), [“Notes de zoologie”], in [La Nuit remue] (1935).

– Jean GIONO (1895-1970), “Le grain de tabac” (1956), “L’ours” (1958), “La poufiasse” (1958), “La bestiasse” (1958), in [Ménagerie énigmatique] (1961) // “La cantharide” (1958), “Le verrat-maquereau”, “L’émeraudine”, “The bear», “Le minus”, “L’oiseau-bleu”, in [Animalités] (1965).

– Stefano BENNI (1947-), [Stranalandia] (1984).

– Monica SARSINI (1953-), [Crepacuore] (1985) // [Crepapelle] (1988) // [Crepapancia] (1996).

– Mircea CĂRTĂRESCU (1956-), Enciclopedia zmeilor (2002).

FICTIONAL CRITICISM

ANTHOLOGIES AND CRITICAL EDITIONS OF IMIAGINARY WRITERS

*: alleged translations.

– Norman DOUGLAS (1868-1952), Some Limericks (1929).

– Vladimir NABOKOV (1899-1977), Pale Fire (1962).

– Woody ALLEN (Allan Stewart Königsberg, 1935-), *“The Scrolls” (1974), “The Irish Genius”, in [Without Feathers] (1975).

– David LANGFORD (1953-), An Account of a Meeting with Denizens from Another World, 1871 by William Robert Loosley (1979).

– Benjamin ROSENBAUM (1969-), *“The Book of Jashar” (2003), in [The Ant King and other stories] (2008).

– Charles YU (1976-), *“The Book of Categories” (2011).

– Aristidis G. ROMANOS (1937-), *Tlön: Journey to a Utopian Civilisation (2015).

– Luís Filipe SILVA (1970-) et alii., Os Anos de Ouro da Pulp Fiction Portuguesa (2011).

– Adolfo de CASTRO (1823-1898), El Buscapié de Cervantes (1844).

– Joaquín BARTRINA (1850-1880), “Una poesía española inédita del siglo XV publicada ahora por primera vez por don N. A. A.”, in [Obras en prosa y verso] (1881).

– Rafael Rafael Zamora y Pérez de Urría, marqués de VALERO DE URRÍA (1861-1908), [Crímenes literarios](1906).

– Pedro Erasmo CALLORDA (1879-1949), El testamento de don Quijote (1918).

– Enrique DÍEZ CANEDO (1879-1944), Alfonso REYES (1889-1959), “Góngora y El Greco” (1921).

– SALARRUÉ (Salvador Salazar Arrué, 1899-1975), *[O’Yarkandal] (1929).

– Max AUB (1903-1972), Jusep Torres Campalans (1958) // Antología traducida (1972).

– Juan José DOMENCHINA (1898-1945), *El diván de Abz-ul-Agrib (1945).

– Rafael SOLANA (1915-1992), *“Sansón y Dalila”, in [El oficleido y otros cuentos] (1960) / El novísmo Algazife o Libro de las Postrimerías (1980).

– Rafael PÉREZ ESTRADA (1934-2000), Revelaciones de la Madre Margarita Amable del Divino Niño del Sí (1970).

– Carlos RIPOLL, “Juan Pérez” por Benjamín Castillo (1970).

– Pedro GÓMEZ VALDERRAMA (1923-1992), “Los papeles de la academia utópica” (1972), in [La procesión de los ardientes] (1973) // “Documentos del padre Alameda”, in [Las alas de los muertos] (1992).

– Rafael LLOPIS (1933-), *“Invocación de una entidad de la noche a su reflejo luminoso” (1974) / El Novísmo Algazife o Libro de las Postrimerías (1980).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), *“El informe de Brodie”, in [El informe de Brodie] (1970) // *“La secta de los Treinta”, *“Undr”, in [El libro de arena] (1975).

– Emilio SERRA (1953-1989), *“Extractos, documentación y fuentes relativos al culto de Yidhra y su relación con el ciclo mítico de Mlandoth” (1979).

– Daína CHAVIANO (1957-), *“El papiro de Ptah”, in [Amoroso planeta] (1983).

– José JIMÉNEZ LOZANO (1930-2020), *[Parábolas y circunloquios de Rabí Isaac Ben Yehuda (1325-1402)] (1985).

– José FERRATER MORA (1912-1991), “Reivindicación de Babel” (1991).

– Federico GARCÍA LORCA (1898-1936), Antología modelna, precedida de los poemas de Isidro Capdepón Fernández (1995).

– Felipe BENÍTEZ REYES (1960-), Vidas improbables (1995/2009).

– Gloria MÉNDEZ (1969-), *[El informe Kristeva] (1997).

– Daniel PÉREZ, “Donde se cuenta la verdadera historia que pasó Sancho al ir a buscar a la señora Dulcinea, y de otros sucesos tan ridículos como verdaderos” (2005).

– Javier FERNÁNDEZ (1971-), “Hacia una traducción de Gigamesh de Patrick Hannahan”, in [La grieta] (2007).

Voz Vértebra: Antología de poesía futura (2017).

– Xuan BELLO (1965-), Pantasmes, mundos, laberintos (1996).

– Roberto GONZÁLEZ-QUEVEDO (1953-), *[Hestoria de la l.literatura primera en Pesicia] (2014).

– Alfred MOQUIN-TANDON (1804-1866), Carya Magalonensis (1836).

– Pompeu GENER (1848-1920), *“Una teogonia índia” (1901) / *“Antic poem del Indostan (Una teogonia vishnuita)”, in [Pensant, sentint i rient] (1911).

– Manuel de PEDROLO (1918-1990), *[Múltiples notícies de l’Edèn] (1985).

– Vicenç PAGÈS JORDÀ (1963-), *“Puella gerundensis”, “La remullada: rondalla apócrifa”, in [El poeta i altres contes] (2005).

– Charles NODIER (1780-1844), *Smarra ou les démons de la nuit (1821).

– Prosper MERIMEE (1803-1870), *La Guzla ou choix de poésies illyriques recueillies dans la Dalmatie, la Bosnie, la Croatie et l’Herzégowine (1827).

– Charles-Augustin SAINTE-BEUVE (1804-1869), Vie, poésies et pensées de Joseph Delorme (1829).

– Alphonse RABBE (1784-1829), *“Le centaure”, in [Album d’un pessimiste] (1835).

– Théodore Hersart de LA VILLEMARQUÉE (1815-1895), *Le Barzaz Breiz, chants populaires de la Bretagne (1839-1845-1867).

– Gabriel VICAIRE (1848-1900); Henri BEAUCLAIR (1860-1919), Les Déliquescences, poèmes décadents d’Adoré Floupette, avec sa vie par Marius Tapora (1885).

– Paul BORY (1837-19?), *Mémoires dun Romain (1890).

– Anatole FRANCE (François Anatole Thibault, 1844-1924), *“Sainte Euphrosine”, (1891), in [L’étui de nacre] (1892/1922).

– Nicolas NOTOVITCH (1858-?), *La Vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ (1894).

– Pierre LOUŸS (1870-1925), *Las Chansons de Bilitis (1895).

– Paul-Jean TOULET (1867-1920), Monsieur du Paur, homme public (1898/1920).

– Hugues REBELL (Georges Grassal de Choffat, 1867-1905), *La saison à Baïa (1900).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), *“Origines du journal: L’Île des Diurnales”, in [Mœurs des Diurnales: Traité de journalisme] (1903; as Loyson-Bridet).

– Gabriel de PIMODAN (1856-1924), *Le roman dune âme antique (1904).

– Valery LARBAUD (1881-1957), Poèmes par un riche amateur ou Œuvres françaises de M. Barnabooth (1908).

– Jean REDNI, *[Luxures antiques, voluptés tragiques] (1908).

– Gaston PICARD (1892-1965), Les Poèmes idiots, œuvre posthume de Myriam Mester (1911).

– Maurice DEKOBRA (Maurice Ernest Tessier, 1885-1973), Hamydal le philosophe, morceaux choisis du célèbre penseur (1921).

– Philippe SELK (¿1873-1940?), *Un livre d’argile. Le Poème de Šu-nir (1922).

– Pascal PIA (Pierre Durand, 1903-1979), À une courtisane, poème inédit de Charles Baudelaire (1925).

– Léon BOPP (1896-1977), “Danger du Lac (de Lamartine)”, in [Drôle de monde] (1940).

– René DAUMAL (1908-1944), “Quelques poètes français du XXVe siècle” (1942).

– Yves GANDON (1899-1975), *La Terrasse des désespoirs (1943) // *Le Pavillon des délices regrettées (1947).

– Jean DUTOURD (1920-2011), *“Ludwig Schnorr ou la marche de l’histoire” (1958), in [Les Dupes] (1959).

– Stefan WUL (Pierre Pairault, 1922-2003), * “Droit de réponse” (1974).

– Maurice MOURIER (1936-), Godilande ou Journal d’un mort (1974).

– Jean TARDIEU (1903-1995), Le Professeur Frœppel (1978).

– Claude BONNEFOY (1929-1979), Ronceraille (1978).

– Alain NADAUD (1948-2015), *Archéologie du zéro (1984).

– Pascal QUIGNARD (1948-), *Les Tablettes de buis d’Apronenia Avitia (1984).

– Jean-Benoît PUECH (1947-), L’Apprentissage du roman. Extraits du Journal d’apprentissage de Benjamin Jordane (1993).

– Éric CHEVILLARD (1964-), L’Œuvre posthume de Thomas Pilaster (1999).

– Pierre JOURDE (1955-); Éric NAULLEAU (1961-), Le Jourde et Naulleau: Précis de littérature du XXIe siècle (2004/2008/2015).

– Pierre SENGES (1968-), *La Réfutation majeure (2004).

– Samir BOUADI; Agathe COLOMBIER-HOCHBERG, 26,5 auteurs qui n’existent pas mais qu’il faut absolument avoir lus (2008).

– Giacomo LEOPARDI (1798-1837), *“Inno a Nettuno” (1817) // Martirio de’ Santi Padri del Monte Sinai e dell’eremo di Raitu composto da Ammonio Monaco, volgarizzamento fatto nel buon secolo della nostra lingua (1826) // *“Cantico del gallo silvestre”, in [Operette morali] (1827) // *“Frammento apocrifo di Stratone di Lampsaco” (1845 [1825]).

– Tommaso GARGALLO (1760-1843), Il paladino d’Ungheria. Novella d’antico codice ora per la prima volta pubblicata (1823).

– Monaldo LEOPARDI (1776-1847), Memoriale di frate Giovanni da Camerino francescano scritto nell’anno 1371(1828/1833).

– Pietro FANFANI (1815-1879), Relazione del viaggio d’Arrigo VII in Italia di Niccolò vescovo di Botrintò, volgarizzata nel secolo XVIV dal notaio ser Bonacosa di ser Bonavita da Pistoia (1847).

– ¿Ignazio PILLITO (1806-1895)?; Pietro MARTINI (1800-1866), Pergamene, codici e fogli cartacei d’Arborea (Cartas de Arborea / Carte d’Arborea) (1863-1865).

– Giuseppe CUGNONI (1824-1908), Vita di Arhot monaco (1884).

– Giuseppe COZZA-LUZZI, Appunti leopardiani (1898).

– Giuseppe MEZZANOTTE (1855-1935), La novella della cesta (1902).

– Augusto FRASSINETI (1911-1985), Misteri dei Ministeri (1952/1974) // “Lo Spirito delle Leggi. Postfazione”, in [Un capitano a riposo] (1963).

– Giacomo BIFFI (1928-), *Il quinto evangelo (1968).

– Brunamaria DAL LAGO (1935-), *Il regno dei Fanes (1989).

– Pietro PIZZARI, *Necronomicon: magia nera in un manoscritto della Biblioteca Vaticana (1993).

– Constandin SION (1795-1862)?, Izvodul spătarului Clănău (Cronica lui Huru) (1856).

– Constantin A. IONESCU-CAION (1880-1918), “Un război al lui Mircea în 1399” (1901).

– Vladimir COLIN (Jean Colin, 1921-1991), *[Legendele Țării lui Vam] (1961).

MOCK BOOK REVIEWS AND SIMILAR DOCUMENTS (including reviews and descriptions of works of art)

– Thomas Babington MACAULAY (1800-1859), “A prophetic account of a grand national epic poem, to be entitled The Wellingtoniad, and to be published A.D. 2824” (1824).

– Aristarchus Newlight (Richard WHATELEY, 1786-1863), Historic Certainties Respecting the Early History of America (1851).

– H. P. LOVECRAFT (1890-1937), “History of the Necronomicon” (1938).

– Woody ALLEN (Allan Stewart Königsberg, 1935-), “The Metterling Lists” (1969), in [Getting Even] (1971).

– Norman SPINRAD (1940-), “Afterword to the Second Edition”, in The Iron Dream (1972).

– Jonathan BAUMBACH (1933-), “Neglected Masterpieces IV”, in [The Return of Service] (1979) // “Neglected Masterpieces III” (1986).

– Samuel R. DELANY (1942-), “Some Informal Remarks toward the Modular Calculus, Part Three, by S. L. Kermit”, in [Tales of Nevèrÿon] (1979).

– Robert M. PRICE (1954-), “A Critical Commentary on the Necronomicon” (1988).

– R. M. BERRY, “Second Story”, “Samuel Beckett’s Middlemarch”, “History”, in [Dictionary of Modern Anguish] (2000).

– Michael CISCO (1970-), “The Thing in the Jar” (2011).

– Cherie PRIEST (1975-), “Addison Howell and the Clockroach” (2011).

– Henrique Maximiano COELHO NETO (1864-1934), “Inauditismo”, in [Lanterna mágica] (1898).

– Melchor FERNÁNDEZ ALMAGRO (1893-1966), “El poeta Capdepón, académico” (1923).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), “El acercamiento a Almotásim”, in [Historia de la eternidad] (1936) / “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote” (1939), “Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain” (1941), in [El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan] (1941) / “Tres versiones de Judas”, in [Ficciones] (1944/1956).

– AZORÍN (José Martínez Ruiz, 1873-1967), “Un librito de versos”, “Estudios históricos”, in [Cavilar y contar] (1942).

– Juan BENET (1927-1993), “Un prólogo a la Historia de la Orden de Caballeros de Don Juan Tenorio” (1959).

– Juan José ARREOLA (1918-2001), “El himen en México”, in [Palindroma] (1971).

– Jaime ROSAL DEL CASTILLO (1945-), “Acerca del verdadero Necronomicón” (1974).

– Juan-Jacobo BAJARLÍA (1914-2005), “El Al-Azif o Necronomicón” (1975-1978).

– José María MONTELLS (1949-), “Sobre el papiro Neferkeré” (1976).

– Emiliano GONZÁLEZ (1955-), “Los cuatro libros de Garret Mackintosh”, in [Los sueños de la bella durmiente] (1978).

– José FERRER-BERMEJO (1956-), “Breve reseña del Kriskongismo”, in [El increíble hombre inapetente y otros relatos] (1982).

– Luis GOYTISOLO (1935-), “Joyce al fin superado” (1984), in [Investigaciones y conjeturas de Claudio Mendoza] (1985).

– Darío VIDAL, “Los papeles dispersos del rabí Samuel Santángel de Alcañiz”, in [Siete ensayos aragoneses y un apócrifo] (1986).

– Óscar de LA BORBOLLA (1949-), “El manual de torturadores”, “La mejor novela de este tiempo”, “La pena de muerte”, “Primera reseña de este libro”, in [Ucronías] (1989).

– Mario LEVRERO (1940-2004), “Giambattista Grozzo, autor de “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”” (1993).

– Eugenio F. GRANELL (1912-2001), “Nota bibliográfica”, in [El aire franco] (2000).

– Eduardo BERTI (1964-), “Una novela premonitoria”, in [La vida imposible] (2002).

– Alberto LÓPEZ AROCA (1976-), [“Mitología creativa”], in [Los espectros conjurados] (2004).

– David ARIAS (1965-), “Necrológica”, in [Horrores cotidianos] (2007).

– Javier FERNÁNDEZ (1971-), “Hacia una traducción de Gigamesh de Patrick Hannahan”, in [La grieta] (2007).

– Jorge CARRIÓN (1976-), ““Nuestro dolor. Algunas reflexiones sobre Los muertos”, por Martha H. de Soto”, ““Los muertos o la narrativa postraumática”, por Jordi Batlló y Javier Pérez”, in Los muertos (2010).

– Pablo MARTÍN SÁNCHEZ (1977-), “Verbigracia”, “Poesía métrica”, in [Fricciones] (2011).

– Enrique GALLUD JARDIEL (1958-), [Historia estúpida de la literatura] (2014).

– Vicente Luis MORA (1970-), “El Quijote de Cervantes como plagio de Si una noche de invierno un viajero, de Italo Calvino” (2016).

– M. Servet (A) Raves, “El descobriment de Madrid, pel doctor Schulze-Pfalz” (1904).

– Joan PERUCHO (1920-2003), “Notícia de Madama Edwarda i de un desconegut escriptor”, “Don Faustino de la Peña i el seu enigmàtic Tratado de carnes”, “El diari de guerra de Xaconín”, “Un cavaller erudit”, “Velles cròniques d’Espanya” (H.), “Els erudits del meravellós”, “Notícia del doctor Thebussem”, in [Aparicions i fantasmes] (1968) // [Històries apòcrifes] (1974) // “El pareraire”, “El Canut o la futurologia en vers” (H.), in [Monstruari fantàstic] (1976)

– Pep ALBANELL (1945-), “El gran lament”, in [L’impacable naufragi de la pols] (1987).

– Joaquim CARBÓ (1932-), “El realisme critic premiat” (1986), “Un llibre de guerra singular” (1986), “El rei Jaume I en calent” (1986), “Campi qui pugui” (1987), in [L’Ofèlia i jo] (2004).

– Pep ALBANELL (1945-), “El gran lament”, in [L’impacable naufragi de la pols] (1987).

– Màrius SERRA (1963-), Amnèsia (1987) (H.).

– Vicenç PAGÈS JORDÀ (1963-), “Cabal/5”, “Emportar-se/10”, in [Cercles dinfinites combinacions] (2003).

– Jordi MASÓ RAHOLA (1967-), “El gnom de Bristol”, in [Polpa] (2016).

– Joan-Claudi FORÊT (1950-), “Logica sens pena”, “Deliri d’interpretacion”, in [Libre dels grands nombres o falses e us de fals] (1998).

– Pierre MILLE (1864-1941), “Poèmes modernes” (1887).

– René ÉTIEMBLE (1909-2002), “Un homme à tuer: Jorge Luis Borges, cosmopolite” (1952).

– Raymond QUENEAU (1903-1976), “De quelques langages animaux imaginaires et notamment du langage chien dans Sylvie et Bruno” (1971)

– Didier ANZIEU (1923-1999), “La sémantique du texte”, in [Contes à rebours] (1975/1987/1995).

– Jean-Benoît PUECH (1947-), [La Bibliothèque d’un amateur] (1979).

– Antoine BELLO (1970-), “L’année Zu”, in [Les Funambules] (1996).

 – Sylvain JOUTY (1949-), “Notes sur le travail d’Eddy Mörcher”, in [Queen Kong] (2001).

– Stéphane JAGDANSKI (1963-), “יהוה, dit “Dieu””, in [Jouissance du temps] (2005).

– Samir BOUADI; Agathe COLOMBIER-HOCHBERG, [26,5 auteurs qui n’existent pas mais qu’il faut absolument avoir lus] (2008).

– Bernard QUIRINY (1978-), “Quelques écrivains, tous morts”, in [Contes cannibales] (2008).

– Yann DALL’AGLIO, [Vies, sentences et doctrines des sages imaginaires] (2014).

– Clémentine MELOIS (1980-), [Cent titres] (2014).

– Emilio CECCHI (1884-1966), “Una comuniccazione accademica” (1919), in [Pesci rossi] (1920).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “SPQR”, in [Racconti impossibili] (1966).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “My exagmination round his factification for incamination to reduplication with ridecolation of a portrait of the artist as Manzoni” (1962), “Tre recensioni anomale” (1967-1971), in [Diario minimo] (1963/1975) // “Dell’esternazione”, “Tre civette sul Comò”, “Lineamenti di critica quantistica”, “Il pensiero di Brachamutanda”, in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Virginia DE BOSIS VACCA (1898-1988), [Recensioni artificiali] (2001).

– Paolo ALBANI (1946-), [Il sosia laterale e altre recensioni] (2003).

HOMO SCRIBENS, [Enciclopedia degli scrittori inesistenti] (2009/2012).

– Luca GIORGI (1960-), [Il libro dei libri] (2011).

– Ovid S. CROHMĂLNICEANU (Moise Cohn, 1921-2000), “Recenzie stiinţifică”, in [Istorii insolite] (1980).

PLOT SUMMARIES OF UNWRITTEN WORKS

Only summaries written as such, not summaries of accidentally lost or unwritten books (e.g. due to the writer’s decease).

Only texts in romance languages.

– Teófilo BRAGA (1843-1924), “Epopéia da Lusónia”, in Viriato (1904).

– Juan VALERA (1824-1905), “Los cordobeses en Creta” (1897).

– Pretextato TRASTIENDA (Francisco ANTICH E IZAGUIRRE, 1872-1930), Novedad, 100 o 200 argumentos para cuentos (tal como los tienen los autores en cartera) (1904).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), “El acercamiento a Almotásim”, in [Historia de la eternidad] (1936) / [El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan] (1941) / “Tema del traidor y del héroe” (1944), in [Ficciones] (1944/1956).

– Ricardo GULLÓN (1908-1991), “Un drama inédito de Unamuno” (1961).

– Jaime ROSAL [DEL CASTILLO] (1945-), “Acerca del verdadero Necronomicón” (1974).

– Luis GOYTISOLO (1935-), “Joyce al fin superado” (1984), in [Investigaciones y conjeturas de Claudio Mendoza] (1985).

– Fernando ARRABAL (1932-), “La travesía de Arrabal” (1988).

– Enrique GALLUD JARDIEL (1958-), “El comité de Kafka”, [“La antiliteratura”], in [Historia estúpida de la literatura] (2014).

– Ramon REVENTÓS (1882-1923), “Argument d’una història llarga” (1916), in [Proses] (1953).

– Valentí CASTANYS (1898-1965), “Dos mil anys després”, in [Barcelona-Hollywood (radio-cinema-sonor)] (1935).

– Francesc TRABAL (1899-1957), [Tres arguments] (1938).

– Joaquim CARBÓ (1932), “El realisme critic premiat” (1986), “Un llibre de guerra singular” (1986), “El rei Jaume I en calent” (1986), “Campi qui pugui” (1987), in [L’Ofèlia i jo] (2004).

– Jules CLARETIE (1840-1913), “Le Napoléon jaune” (1900).

– Jacques RIGAUT (1898-1929), “Un brillant sujet” (1922).

– Jean-Benoît PUECH (1947-), [La Bibliothèque d’un amateur] (1979).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “La Chartreuse de Parme (critique imaginaire)”, “La Bataille de l’eau de Lourdes”, in [La Rose réaliste] (1985).

– Sarane ALEXANDRIAN (1927-2009), [Soixante sujets de romans au goût du jour et de la nuit] (2000).

– Theo CANDINAS (1929-), «Gion Barlac ei el claus», in [Historias da Gion Barlac] (1975).

– Luigi CAPUANA (1839-1915), «Un melodramma inedito», in [Fumando] (1889) / [Le appassionate] (1893).

– Giovanni PAPINI (1881-1956), “Un film originale”, in [Le pazzie del poeta] (1950) // “Il poema dell’uomo (di Walt Whitman)”, “La gioventù di Don Chisciotte (di Miguel de Cervantes)”, “Il Primo e l’Ultimo (di Unamuno)”, “Il ritorno (di Franz Kafka)”, “La conversione del papa (di Roberto Browning)”, “Il paradiso ritrovato (di William Blake)”, in [Il libro nero] (1951).

– Felix ADERCA (Zelicu Froim Aderca, 1891-1962), “Pastorală”, in [Aventurile D-lui Ionel Lăcustă-Termidor] (1932).

– Mircea Horia SIMIONESCU (1928-2011), “ANTONIO GOVERNALY: Noocracia”, in Bibliografia generală (1971).

– Mircea OPRIŢĂ (1943-), “Meteoritul tungus” (2005), in [Sindromul Quijote şi alte ficţiuni rebele] (2014).

FICTIONAL LISTS

Bibliographies, book catalogs, audiovisual and musical programmes, and imaginary indexes

Only texts published as literary texts in collections of fictions and/or literary journals.

– R. LONSDALE, Catalogue of the Extensive Library of Doctor Rainbeau (1862).

– Francis Peloubet FARQUHAR (1887-1974), A Catalogue of Rare Books and Manuscripts (1946).

– J. [James] G. [Graham] BALLARD (1930-2009), “The Index” (1977), in [War Fever] (1990) and [The Complete Short Stories] (2001) // “A Guide to Virtual Death” (1992), in [The Complete Short Stories] (2001).

– Rosendo PONS, “Del año 3000” (1901).

– José Alberto GONZÁLBEZ, “Cierta guía de conciertos de la orquesta filarmónica de Plutón” (1980).

– Renier CHALON (1802-1889), Catalogue dune très riche mais peu nombreuse collection de livres provenant de la bibliothèque de feu M. le Comte J.N.A. de Fortsas (1840).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), “Les cent bons livres du journaliste”, in [Mœurs des Diurnales: Traité de journalisme] (1903; as Loyson-Bridet).

BIBLICAL MODERN APOCRHYPHA

Texts which mimic ancient rethoric.

*: purely literary.

– Joseph SMITH (1805-1844), The Book of Mormon (1830).

The Lost Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (1871).

– William Dennes MAHAN (1824-1906), A Correct Transcript of Pilate’s Court (1879) / The Archaeological Writings of the Sanhedrin and Talmuds of the Jews, Taken from the Ancient Parchments and Scrolls at Constantinople and the Vatican at Rome, Being the Record Made by the Enemies of Jesus of Nazareth in His Day (1884).

– John Ballou NEWBROUGH (1828-1891), Oahspe (1882/1891).

– Gideon Jasper Richard OUSELEY (1834-1906), The Gospel of the Holy Twelve (1898-1901).

– Levi H. DOWLING (1844-1911), The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ (1908).

Letter of Jesus Christ (1917).

Epistle of Kallikrates (1928)

– William Percival CROZIER (1879-1944), *Letters of Pontius Pilate (1928).

– Catherine VAN DYKE, “Letters from Pontius Pilate’s Wife” (1929).

– Edmond Bordeaux SZEKELY (1905-1979), The Gospel of Peace of Jesus Christ by the Disciple John (1937) / The Essene Gospel of John (1956).

– Woody ALLEN (Allan Stewart Königsberg, 1935-), “The Scrolls” (1974), in [Without Feathers] (1975).

– Benjamin ROSENBAUM (1969-), *“The Book of Jashar” (2003), in [The Ant King and other stories] (2008) // *“Tractate Metim 28A” (2015).

– Jeffrey ARCHER (1940-); Francis J. MOLONEY, The Gospel According to Judas (2007).

– Joaquim Maria MACHADO DE ASSIS (1839-1908), *“Na Arca: Três capítulos inéditos do Gênesis” (1878), in [Papéis Avulsos] (1882).

– Henrique Maximiano COELHO NETO (1864-1934), “Judas”, in [Lanterna mágica] (1898).

– ANDRENIO (Eduardo GÓMEZ DE BAQUERO, 1866-1929), *“El Evangelio del Fariseo” (1911), in [Escenas de la vida moderna] (1913).

– Edmundo GONZÁLEZ BLANCO (1877-1938), “Jesús de Nazareth”, in [Jesús de Nazareth] (1915) / [Cuentos fantásticos] (1920).

– Clemente PALMA (1872-1946), *“Diatriba” (1927) / *“Elogio y diatriba” (1938).

– Tomás BORRÁS (1891-1976), *“La escisión”, in [Azul contra gris] (1948).

– Rafael SOLANA (1915-1992), *“Sansón y Dalila”, in [El oficleido y otros cuentos] (1960).

– J. [Juan] J. [José] BENÍTEZ (1946-), El testamento de San Juan (1988).

– Jaume RODRI (1940-), Evangeli de Jesús (1973).

– Manuel de PEDROLO (1918-1990), *“Fragment de la Crònica d’Irad”, *“Llibre de Naama”, *“Dels fets de l’Eva i l’Adam”, *“La presència del Serpent”, *“La Creació, segons el text de Babilònia del segle XI a. C.”, in [Múltiples notícies de l’Edèn] (1985).

– George SAND (Aurore Dupin, 1804-1876), *“Le Poème de Myrza” (1835).

– Nicolas NOTOVITCH (1858-?), La Vie inconnue de Jésus-Christ (1894).

– Renée VIVIEN (Pauline Mary Tarn, 1877-1909), *“La genèse profane”, in [Brumes de fjords] (1902).

– Han RYNER (Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner, 1861-1938), Le Cinquième Évangile (1910).

– George Armand MASSON (1892-1977), *“Vanité des vanités”, *“L’Évangile selon Sainte Orberose”, in [LArt daccommoder les classiques] (1924).

– François CAVANNA (1923-2014), Les Aventures de Dieu (1971) – Les Aventures du petit Jésus, in [Les Écritures] (1982).

– Michel POTAY (1929-), L’Évangile donné à Arès (1974) – Le Livre (1977) / La Révélation d’Arès (1984).

– Frère BERNARD-MARIE, Le Cinquième Évangile d’après les agrapha et quelques mystiques (1997).

– Giacomo BIFFI (1928-), Il quinto evangelo (1968).

FICTIONAL BUSINESS DOCUMENTS

Prospectuses, business reports, commercial documents (including invoices)

*: narratives (company histories and narrative reports)

º: descriptions by third parties.

– James THOMSON (1834-1882), *“The Story of a Famous Old Jewish Firm” (1865), in [Satires and Profanities] (1884).

– John DAVIDSON (1857-1909), “The World’s Pleasance Company, Limited”, in “The Salvation of Nature”, in [The Great Man; and a Practical Novelist] (1891) / [The Pilgrimage of Strongsoul and Other Stories] (1896).

– Max APPLE (1941-), “An Offering”, in [Free Agents] (1984).

– John Thomas SLADEK (1937-2002), *Wholly Smokes (2003).

– Henrique Maximiano COELHO NETO (1864-1934), “Nova companhia”, in [Lanterna mágica] (1898).

– Antonio FLORES (1818-1865), º“El Gran Hotel de la Unidad Transatlántica”, in [Mañana, o la chispa eléctrica en 1899], third volume of [Ayer, hoy y mañana, o la fe, el vapor y la electricidad] (1863).

– Francisco AYALA (1906-2009), º“Ciencia e industria”, in [El jardín de las delicias] (1971).

– David ROAS (1965-), “Mecánica y psicoanálisis (un futuro cercano)”, in [Horrores cotidianos] (2007).

– Ramon PÉREZ-PUJOL (1916-1984), º“El sistema Togosoku”, in [Històries de ciencia-emoció] (1973).

– Émile SOUVESTRE (1806-1854), “Télégraphes trans-aériens”, in Le Monde tel qu’il sera (1846).

– Auguste de VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM (1838-1889), º“L’agence du Chandelier d’or” (1884), in [L’Amour suprême] (1886).

– George AURIOL (Jean-Georges Huyot, 1863-1938), º“Manufacture de sonnets” (1889).

– Tristan BERNARD (1866-1947), “Société anonyme de brigandage et de cambriolage dans les villas” (1899), in [Sous toutes réserves] (1911).

– Alfred JARRY (1873-1907), º“La Société protectrice des enfants martyrs” (1901).

– Jacques RIGAUT (1898-1929), “Agence Générale du Suicide”, in [Agence Générale du Suicide] (1959).

– Theo CANDINAS (1929-), º“Descripziun d’in stabiliment”, ein [Entagls] (1974).

– Ursicin G. [Gion] G. [Gieli] DERUNGS (1935-), *“La radunonza generala”, in [Il cavalut verd ed auter] (1988).

– Alexandru MACEDONSKI (1854-1920), *“Oceania-Pacific-Dreadnought” (1913).

FICTIONAL ADVERTISEMENT

Heterotopian fictional advertisement: Javier Fernándezs “La IslaTM” and the literary genre of the fictional advert

Fictions for advertising purposes have existed for a long time. Inversely, there is a textual form that uses advertising for literary purposes: fictional advertising texts. Among them, there are advertisements of imaginary institutions and goods written, for instance, by Coelho Neto, Rigaut and Arreola, as well as “La IslaTM”, a part of the cyberpunk work entitled Absolute Zero (2005), by Javier Fernandez. This mock tourist brochure reveals through fiction the (anti-)utopian dimension of the kind of advertising that sells heterotopian spaces. This text stands out due to its consistency and autonomy, and generates a complete fictional world through the signs and the discourse of advertising, thus illustrating the semiotic exchange between advertisement and literary fiction.

Fictional business documents are excluded.

– R. M. BERRY, “(paid advertisement)”, in [Dictionary of Modern Anguish] (2000).

– Mark A. RAINER, “Pages I Have Dog-Eared in the Fall 2037 Hammacher Schlemmer Glaven Catalog”, in [Pirate Therapy and Other Cures] (2012).

– Steven MILLHAUSER (1943-), “Arcadia” (2013), in [Voices in the Night] (2015).

– Modesto LAFUENTE (1806-1866), “Máquina para afeitar”, in “Un rapa-barbas de nueva invención”, in [Teatro social del siglo XIX] (1846).

– Antonio FLORES (1818-1865), “El que da lo que tiene a más no está obligado, o cómo por el hilo del pregón se sacará el ovillo de la cosa pregonada”, in [Mañana, o la chispa eléctrica en 1899], in [Ayer, hoy y mañana, o la fe, el vapor y la electricidad] (1863).

– Rafael Rafael Zamora y Pérez de Urría, marqués de VALERO DE URRÍA (1861-1908), “The Universal, Mechanic, Literary, Poetical and Prosaic Company Limited” (1892) / “Máquina cerebral”, in [Crímenes literarios] (1906).

– Silverio LANZA (Juan Bautista AMORÓS, 1856-1912), “¡No más anhidros!”, in [Cuentos escogidos] (1908).

– Juan José ARREOLA (1918-2001), “Baby H.P.”, “Anuncio”, in [Confabulario] (1952).

– José FERRER-BERMEJO (1956-), “Ponga un ciego en su vida”, in [Incidente en Atocha] (1982).

– Javier FERNÁNDEZ (1971-), “La IslaTM”, in Cero absoluto (2005).

– Ramon COMAS I MADUELL (1935-1978), “…I la màquina”, in [Rescat d’ambaixadors] (1970).

– Òscar PÀMIES (1961-), “Com resoldre el pitjor problema de les grans conurbacions”, in [Com serà la fi del món: Maneres que tindrà de presentar-se’ns i com preparar-s’hi anímicament] (1996).

– Honoré de BALZAC (1799-1850), “Double Pâte des Sultanes et Eau Carminative de César Birotteau, découverte merveilleuse approuvée par l’Institut de France”, in César Birotteau (1837).

– Ernest JAUBERT (1856-1942), “Un prospectus de l’an 2000” (1890).

FICTIONAL PRESCRIPTIVE TEXTS

Prescriptive discourse, literary fiction and dystopia: Santiago Eximeno’s “La hora de la verdad” (2003) in its genre context

Several recent texts suggest that fiction is a concept which should be distinguished from the narrative. Even prescriptive discourse (rules, instructions, etc.) can be used to create a possible fictional world, without narration or characters. The example of Santiago Eximeno’s zombie fiction “The Moment of Truth” (2003) shows that the introduction of fantastic elements in a normative discourse can contribute to the shaping of a whole fictional universe. This presents dystopian features in the above-mentioned work, as it indicates the repressive mechanisms exercised through the prescriptive power of the State.

Real political and legislative proposals, even if made by individuals not in office, are excluded.

LAWS, REGULATIONS, DIRECTIVES, RECOMMENDATIONS, DIRECTIONS, POLITICAL PROGRAMMES, ETC., PUBLIC OR PRIVATE

(v.): in verse

*: legally binding texts.

– Rudyard KIPLING (1865-1936), “The Law of the Jungle” (v.), in [The Second Jungle Book] (1895).

– Frederick Upham ADAMS (1859-1921), *“Constitution of the United States of America”, in President John Smith (1897).

– Henry O. MORRIS, *“Constitution of the United States”, in Waiting for the Signal (1897).

– Mark TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910), “Etiquette for the Afterlife: Advice to Paine” (1912/1995 [1910]).

– Edward Mandell HOUSE (1858-1938), *“The New National Constitution”, “New State Constitutions”, in Philip Dru: Administrator (1912).

– Evelyn WAUGH (1903-1966), *“Order for the Day of the Emperor’s Departure”, in Black Mischief (1932).

– Isaac ASIMOV (1920-1922), Three Laws of Robotic, in “Runaround” (1942), in [I, Robot] (1950).

– Peter PORTER (1927-2010), *“Your Attention Please” (v.) (1962).

– Franz JOSEPH (1914-1994), *“Articles of Federation”, in [Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual] (1975).

– David BRIN (1950-), *“National Recovery Act”, in The Postman (1985).

– David GULBRAA, *The Constitution of the Individual’s Republic of Atlantis (2000).

– Max BROOKS (1972-), The Zombie Survival Guide (2003).

– Jamie KILLEN, “So You’ve Chosen to Foster” (2015).

– Terry BRUCE, “Welcome to Oasis” (2015).

– Octávio dos SANTOS (1965-), *“Decreto Lei Nº 54”, in [Visões] (2003).

– Viton ARAÚJO (1982-), 100 coisas para fazer (depois de morrer) (2012).

– Rafael Rafael Zamora y Pérez de Urría, marqués de VALERO DE URRÍA (1861-1908), “Dogmas éticos”, in [Crímenes literarios] (1906).

– José MORENO VILLA (1887-1955), “Órdenes de “El Caballero Azul” en su quinta manifestación vital”, in [“Vidas quebradas”], in [Patrañas] (1921).

– Carlos VILLAMIL CASTILLO, “El mundo de los fantasmas”, in [La venganza de los perros y otros cuentos] (1949).

– Manuel DERQUI (1921-1973), *“Manual para maquinistas marcianos” [1961], in [Todos los cuentos] (2008).

– Sergio RAMÍREZ (1942-), *“Suprema ley por la que se regula el bien general de las personas, se premian sus acciones nobles y se castigan sus malos actos y hábitos, dictada en XIV parágrafos”, in [De tropeles y tropelías] (1972).

– Alberto CAÑAS (1920-2014), “La división del mundo”, in [La exterminación de los pobres y otros pienses] (1974).

– Rafael LLOPIS (1933-), “Falsa proclama” (1974).

– Víctor ALBA (1916-2003), “Programa de la Resistencia Española para la paz”, in 1936-1976. Historia de la Segunda República española (1976).

– Santiago EXIMENO (1973-), *“La hora de la verdad” (2003), in [Bebés jugando con cuchillos] (2008) // “Tu bebé diabólico”, in [Obituario privado] (2010).

– YOSS (José Miguel Sánchez Gómez, 1969-), “Si usted se siente como un dios… (Decálogo de autoayuda para turistas que visitan Shu-Wu-Kun-Lu)” (2008).

– David ACRICH, “De oficio, picador de aire”, in [El reencuentro de Rabí Samuel y otros relatos] (2009).

– Louis GEOFFROY (1803-1858), *“Moniteur universel du 5 août 1871”, in Napoléon et la conquête du Monde. 1812 à 1832. Histoire de la Monarchie universelle (1836).

– Alexandre DUMAS (1802-1870), *“Constitution de la Nation des Mosquitos dans l’Amérique centrale”, in Le Capitaine Pamphile (1839).

– Léon BOPP (1896-1977), “Règlement pour l’humanisation de la guerre (élaboré par M. Kourbar Glutsch)”, in [Drôle de monde] (1940).

– Boris VIAN (1920-1959), *“Paris, le 15 Décembre 1999…” (1958).

– Pierre BOURGEADE (1927-2009), *“Loi relative au remplacement de la femme par les femelles des animaux”, in La fin du monde (1984).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “Come fare l’indiano”, in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Ion Luca CARAGIALE (1852-1912), “‘Românii verzi’” (1901).

– Ov. S. CROHMĂLNICEANU (Moise Cohn, 1921-2000), *Tratatul de la Neuhof, in “Tratatul de la Neuhof”, in [Istorii insolite] (1980).

– Dănuţ UNGUREANU (1958-), “Domus” (1992), in [Basme geoestaţionare] (2008).

– Caius DOBRESCU (1966-), “Recomandări privind buna circulaţie a fluidelor corporale pe insula Aragnon”, in Euromorphotikon (2010).

ADMINISTRATIVE DOCUMENTS (FORMS, CONTRACTS, BILLS, PHARMACEUTICAL LEAFLETS, ETC.)

– John SLADEK (1937-2000), “Anxietal Register B” (1969), in [Alien Accounts](1982).

– Tara CAMPBELL, “Nickerson Interstellar Student Exchange Behavioral Contract” (2015).

– Pablo MARTÍN SÁNCHEZ (1977-), “Ósculos ® (vía oral)”, in [Fricciones] (2011).

COLLECTIONS OF SPECULATIVE FICTIONAL LETTERS

(v.): en verso.

*: just one letter.

– David STIRRAT, A Treatise on Political Economy: or the true principles of political economy in the form of a romaunt, for the more pleasing accommodation of readers; Explained in a series of letters to Aristippus, from Aristander, perceived in a deep vision (1824).

– Baron Joseph CORVAJA (1785-1860), Perpetual Peace to the Machine by the Universal Millennium, or The Sovereign Bankocracy, and the Grand Social Ledger of Mankind (1855).

– Old Peter Piper, “Peter Pipers Letters. Peter’s Vision” (1869).

– Anna DODD (1858-1929), The Republic of the Future; or, Socialism A Reality (1887).

– Wladjslaw Somerville LACH-SZYRMA (1841-1915), [Letters from the Planets] (1887-1893).

– Alice B. STOCKHAM (1833-1912); Lida Hood TALBOT, Koradine (1889).

– William Dean HOWELLS (1837-1920), Letters of an Altrurian Traveller (1892-1893).

– Clark Edmund PERSINGER (1873-?), Letters from New America; or an Attempt at Practical Socialism (1900).

– William Thomas STEAD (1849-1912), In Our Midst. The Letters of Callicrates to Dione, Queen of the Xanthians, concerning England and the English, Anno Domini 1902 (1903).

– Mary CARBERY (1867-1949), “If the Germans Came” (1916) // The Germans in Cork: Being the Letters of His Excellency the Baron von Kartoffel (Military Governor of Cork in the Year 1918), and Others (1917).

– Herbert Millingchamp VAUGHAN (1870-1948), Nephelococcygia; Or, Letters from Paradise (1929).

– Upton SINCLAIR (1878-1968), The Way Out: What Lies Ahead for America (1933).

– Geddes MACGREGOR (1909-1998), From a Christian Ghetto: Letters of Ghostly Wit, Written A.D. 2453 (1954).

The John Franklin Letters (1959).

– Arthur WASKOW (1933-), “Notes from 1999” (1973).

– Alasdair GRAY (1934-), Five Letters from an Eastern Empire giving Information upon Architecture, Etiquette, Irrigation, Ventriloquism, Justice, Sex and Poems in an Obsolete Country (1979).

– Cândido de FIGUEIREDO (1846-1925), Lisboa no Ano Três Mil (1892).

– António de MACEDO (1931-2017), “O limite de Rudzky”, in [O Limite de Rudzky e Outras Histórias] (1992).

– Julián Manuel del PORTILLO (1818-1862), Lima de aquí a cien años (1843-1844).

– Adolfo de CASTRO (1823-1898), Cartas dirigidas desde el otro mundo a D. Bartolo Gallardete (1851).

– Juan BRAVO MURILLO (1803-1873), *La Internacional y las damas españolas (1872).

– Casta ESTEBAN Y NAVARRO (1841-1885), *“Una carta del otro mundo”, in [Mi primer ensayo] (1884).

– Nilo María FABRA (1843-1903), El problema social (1890) // “La locura del anarquismo (Cartas del doctor Occipucio al abogado Verboso)”, in [Cuentos ilustrados] (1895).

– Rafael Rafael Zamora y Pérez de Urría, marqués de VALERO DE URRÍA (1861-1908), “Áureas lavas”, in [Crímenes literarios] (1906).

– Santiago RAMÓN Y CAJAL (1852-1934), *“Carta de una hormiga esclavista”, in [Charlas de café] (1920).

– Juan G. [García] ATIENZA (1930-2011), “Kuklos” (1967) // “El pisito solariego” (1968).

– René AVILÉS FABILA (1940-2016), *“En las cumbres deportivas”, in [La desaparición de Hollywood y otras sugerencias para principiar un libro] (1973) and [Fantasías en carrusel] (1978/1995/2001).

– Pere VERDAGUER (1929-2017), Les lletres de l’oncle Enric i els missatges de l’extraterrestre (1978).

– Carme RIERA (1949-), “Princesa meva, lletra d’Àngel”, in [Contra lamor en companyia i altres relats] (1991).

– Oriol CANOSA (1975-), L’illa de Paidonèsia (2017).

– Henri de PARVILLE (François Henri Peudefer, 1838-1909), Un habitant de la planète Mars (1865).

– Adrien ROBERT (Adrien Basset, 1822-1869), “La Guerre de 1894”, in [Contes fantasques et fantastiques] (1867).

– Alfred FRANKLIN (1830-1917), Les ruines de Paris en 4875 (1875) / Les ruines de Paris en 4908 (1908).

– Paul ADAM (1862-1920), Lettres de Malaisie (1898).

– Remy de GOURMONT (1858-1915), Lettres d’un satyre (1907-1910/1913).

– Georges DUHAMEL (1884-1966), Lettres d’Auspasie (1922) / Lettres au Patagon (1926).

– Association général des étudiants d’Alger, “Excursions dans l’avenir. En l’an 2030 et en l’an 2130” (1929).

– Paul GABRIEL, Messages martiens (1956).

– Pierre GRIPARI (1925-1990), “Opération pucelle”, in [Diable, Dieu et autres contes de menterie] (1965).

– Jacques STERNBERG (1923-2006), “Bien sincèrement à vous”, in [Futurs sans avenir] (1971).

– Octave MANNONI (1899-1989), Lettres personnelles (1990).

– Ursicin G. [Gion] G. [Gieli] DERUNGS (1935-), “Correspondenza cul purgatieri”, in [Il saltar dils morts] (1982).

+ Augusto FRASSINETI (1911-1985), “Prima lettera” – “Seconda lettera”, in [Misteri dei Ministeri] (1952/1974).

– Umberto ECO (1932-2016), “Stelle e stellette” (1976), in [Il secondo diario minimo] (1992).

– Roberto CASATI (1961-), Achille C. VARZI (1958-), “Di un progetto inutile”, “Missiva sul tempo da Valle Finale”, “L’ultimo caso del Presidente delle Amebe”, “Acido universale”, in [Semplicità insormontabili: 39 storie filosofiche] (2004) // *“La placca del Pioneer” (2015), in [Semplicemente diaboliche: 100 nuove storie filosofiche] (2017).

– Ion GHICA (1816-1897), *“Insula Prosta” (1885-1886), in [Scrisori către Vasile Alecsandri] (1887).

– Ovid S. CROHMĂLNICEANU (Moise Cohn, 1921-2000), “Scrisori din Arcadia”, in [Alte istorii insolite] (1986).

SCHOLARLY AND POLITICAL LECTURES AND SPEECHES

(except fictional historiographical lectures)

– Edward A. [Algernon] BAUGHAN (1865-1938). “Prehistoric Music. A Lecture Delivered by Professor Boremall before the Members of the Society of Antediluvian Art, July, 2897” (1897).

– K. [Kaye] RAYMOND, “The Great Thought” (1937).

– Isaac ASIMOV (1920-1992), “Thiotimoline and the Space Age” (1960), in [Opus 100] (1969).

– Harry MATHEWS (1930-), “Remarks of the Scholar Graduate”, in [Country Cooking and Other Stories] (1980).

– Rafael Rafael Zamora y Pérez de Urría, marqués de VALERO DE URRÍA (1861-1908), “Dogmas éticos”, “Banquete anual”, in [Crímenes literarios] (1906).

– Eduardo MAGGIO, “La nada” (1906).

– Enrique JARDIEL PONCELA (1901-1952), “Teoría del ente infinito considerado como base de utopías trilaterales” (1930).

– Max AUB (1903-1972), “Sesión secreta” (1964), in [Historias de mala muerte] (1965) // “El teatro español sacado a la luz de las tinieblas de nuestro tiempo” (1971).

– Manuel VÁZQUEZ MONTALBÁN (1939-2003), “50 años después de la derrota aliada” (1994).

– Mària Aurèlia CAPMANY (1918-1991), “Leviatan”, in [Com uma mà] (1958) and [Coses i noses] (1980).

– Alfred FRANKLIN (1830-1917), Mœurs et coutumes des Parisiens en 1880. Cours professé au Collège de France pendant le second semestre de l’année 3882 par Alfred Mantien, professeur d’archéologie transcendante (1882).

– A. de NOUVAL, “Une séance à la Société de Philandrologie en 1900”, in [Contes salés] (1884).

– Alfred de SAUVENIÈRE (1844-1912), “En l’an 2885!!!” (1885).

– Auguste de VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM (1838-1889), “Le banquet des éventualistes” (1887), in [Tribulat Bonhomet] (1887).

– Abbé P. NÉON (Abbé Farion), Sermon pour la fête de la Toussaint en lan 2000 (1899).

– Jean de BOECK (1863-1913), “Leçon donnée par Mlle Sophie Muller, professeur de psychiatrie à la clinique de Hambourg en l’an 2000” (1890).

– Paul THÉODORE-VIBERT (1851-1918), “À quoi bon?”, in [Pour lire en automobile] (1901).

– Edmond HARAUCOURT (1856-1941), “Le gorilloïde” (1904).

– N. de MONTFERRATO, “En l’an 2745” (1905).

– Louis LOTTIN (1880-1916), “Le trésor des pierres”, in [Lyon en l’an 2000] (1911).

– Vicente HUIDOBRO (1893-1948), Finnis Britannia (1923).

– Léon BOPP (1896-1977), “L’art d’être aimé”, in [Drôle de monde] (1940).

– Pietro GORI (1865-1911), La leggenda del Primo Maggio (1905), in [Cenere e faville] (1911).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “Nuove rivelazioni della psiche umana. L’uomo di Mannheim. (Relazione letta alla Reale Accademia delle Scienze dall’on. Onisammot Iflodnal, azerbeigiano)”, in [La spada] (1942) // “SPQR”, in [Racconti impossibili] (1966).

– Augusto FRASSINETI (1911-1985), “Relazione al Congresso della Sezione Italiana del Congresso Internazionale”, in [Un capitano a riposo] (1963).

– Luce D’ERAMO (1925-2001), “Una proposta risolutiva” (1989).

– Tudor ARGHEZI (Ion N. Theodorescu, 1880-1967), “În preistorie”, in [Tablete din Ţara de Kuty] (1933).

SCIENCE FICTION PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUES

(v.): in verse.

*: interview.

– Thomas Henry LISTER (1800-1842), “A Dialogue for the Year 2130, Extracted from the Album of a Modern Sibyl” (1829).

– Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849), “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion” (1839), in [Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque] (1840).

– Edgar FAWCETT (1847-1904), “In the Year Ten Thousand” (v.), in [Songs of Doubt and Dream] (1890).

– Havelock ELLIS (1859-1939), The Nineteenth Century: A Dialogue in Utopia (1900).

– Mary CHOLMONDELEY (1859-1925), “Votes for Men: A Dialogue” (1909).

– M. [Matthew] P. [Phipps] SHIEL (1865-1947), “How Life Climbs” (1934).

– Paul BEAUJON (Beatrice Lamberton Warde, 1900-1969), Peace under Earth: Dialogues from the Year 1946 (1938).

– Rex WARNER (1905-86), Why Was I Killed?: A Dramatic Dialogue (1943).

– Clifford A. PICKOVER (1957-), The Stars of Heaven (2001).

– Luís Filipe SILVA (1970-), “O Fernando Pessoa electrónico”, in [O Futuro à Janela] (1991).

– Fósforo Cerillos (Sebastián CAMACHO ZULUETA, 1822-1915), “México en el año 1970” (1844).

– AZORÍN (José MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, 1873-1967), “La Prehistoria” (1905) / “Epílogo futurista”, in El político (1919).

– Eduardo BERTRÁN RUBIO (1838-1909), “Un invento despampanante” (1906).

– Enrique GONZÁLEZ FIOL (1879-1947), “El tractor del porvenir, ¡la pulga!”, in [Por qué se puso Eva el clásico pámpano] (1925).

– Antonio MACHADO (1875-1939), “Diálogo entre Juan de Mairena y Jorge Meneses”, in [De un cancionero apócrifo] (1928).

– ANDRENIO (Eduardo GÓMEZ DE BAQUERO, 1866-1929), “La extraña máquina”, in [Guignol] (1929).

– Juan G. [García] ATIENZA (1930-2011), “Enfermo” (1973).

– Ramón J. SENDER (1901-1982), “Aventura del Ángelus I”, in [Las gallinas de Cervantes y otras narraciones parabólicas] (1967) and [Novelas del otro jueves] (1969).

– Jaume PUIGBÒ, “Entrevista amb un extraterrestre” (1982).

– Camille FLAMMARION (1842-1925), “Lumen”, in [Récits de l’infini] (1872) / Lumen (1887).

– Charles SECRETAN (1815-1895), “Gillette ou le problème économique” (1888), in [Mon utopie] (1892).

– Jean RICHEPIN (1849-1926), “Le monstre” (1891), in [Théâtre chimérique] (1896).

– Henri MARET (1837-1917), “Les deux planètes” (1900).

– Iwan GILKIN (1858-1924), “Le restaurant de Moscou (vers 2250)”, in Jonas (1900)

– Paul MAX (1884-1944), “Mars” (1924).

– Sosthène, *“Le Martien interviewé” (1927).

– Maurice RENARD (1875-1939), “Sur la planète Mars” (1939).

– Alfred SAUVY (1898-1990), Utopie iatocratique (1954).

– Amélie NOTHOMB (Fabienne Claire Nothomb, 1966-), Péplum (1996).

– Corrado ALVARO (1895-1956), “L’augurio volante” (1950).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “Il monumento” en [L’epidemia] (1956).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “Quattro chiachiere in famiglia”, “Un concetto astrusso”, in [Racconti impossibili] (1966).

– Ovid S. CROHMĂLNICEANU (Moise Cohn, 1921-2000), *“Interviul”, in [Alte istorii insolite] (1986).

SPECULATIVE CONVERSATION

It is a kind of argumentative fiction consisting in the report by a homodiegetic (first person) narrator of his or dialogue with someone who exposes his or her (farfetched) ideas, thus offering a portrait (ethopeia) of his or her unconventional personality).

* = in verse.

– Edgar Allan POE (1809-1849), “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” (1845).

– H. G. WELLS (1866-1946), “The Diamond Maker” (1894), “The Triumphs of a Taxidermist” (1894), in [The Stollen Bacillus and Other Incidents](1895).

– Joaquim Maria MACHADO DE ASSIS (1839-1908), “O Espelho”, in [Papéis Avulsos] (1882).

– Mário de SÁ-CARNEIRO (1890-1916), “O Homem dos Sonhos” (1913), in [Céu em Fogo] (1915).

– Fernando PESSOA (1888-1935), “O Banqueiro Anarquista” (1922) // “A Perversão do Longe” [1913] (2012) // “Empresa Fornecedora de Mitos, Lda.” [¿1923?] (2012) // “O Adiador” [¿1925?] (2014).

– José Maria FERREIRA DE CASTRO (1898-1974), “O Senhor dos Navegantes”, in [A Missão] (1954).

– Esteban BORRERO ECHEVERRÍA (Cuba 1849-1906), “Calófilo” (1879).

– Carlos MONSALVE (Argentina, 1859-1940), “De un mundo a otro” (1879), in [Páginas literarias] (1881).

– José FERNÁNDEZ BREMÓN (1839-1910), “Siete historias en una”, in [Cuentos] (1879) // “Un Dios con sombrero de copa” (1879) // “Quintar los muertos” (1879) // “El club de los pacíficos” (1887) // “La mitad de la justicia” (1888) // “El diccionario de los gatos” (1899) // “Certamen de inventores” (1900) // “El gremio de verdugos” (1902).

– Silverio LANZA (Juan Bautista Amorós, 1856-1912), “Lo que se necesita para dar” (1894).

– Miguel de UNAMUNO (1864-1936), “Sueño” (1897), “Una visita al viejo poeta” (1899; El espejo de la muerte, 1913), “El abejorro” (1900), “Don Martín, o de la gloria” (1900), “La locura del doctor Montarco” (1904), “El que se enterró” (1908), “Bonifacio” (El espejo de la muerte, 1913), “Don Catalino, hombre sabio” (1915), “Robledo, el actor” (1920), “El alcalde de Orbajosa (etopeya)” (1921), in [Cuentos] // “El fin de un anarquista” (1995 [1894]).

– Ramón PÉREZ DE AYALA (1880-1962), “La caverna de Platón” (1904) // “El filósofo de las casas de huéspedes”, in Belarmino y Apolonio (1921).

– Enrique LABARTA POSE (1863-1925), “El hombre fúnebre”, in [Cuentos humorísticos] (1905).

– Miguel SAWA (1866-1910), “Historias de locos” (1904) / “Judas”, in [Historias de locos] (1910).

– Leopoldo LUGONES (1874-1938), “La fuerza Omega”, “La metamúsica”, “El Psychon”, “Viola Acherontia”, in [Las fuerzas extrañas] (1906).

– Pompeyo GENER (1848-1920), “El doctor Stumper”, in [Del presente, del pasado y del futuro] (1911).

– Luis LÓPEZ DE MESA (1884-1967), “Apólogo de la Gloria”, in [El libro de los apólogos] (1918).

– José María SALAVERRÍA (1873-1940), “El forjador de fantasmas”, in [Páginas novelescas] (1920) and [El muñeco de trapo] (1928) // “El soñador arruinado” (1922), in [El muñeco de trapo] (1928) // “El fichero supremo” (1926), in [El muñeco de trapo] (1928).

– AZORÍN (José Martínez Ruiz, 1873-1967), “El arte del actor” (1935), in [Cavilar y contar] (1942).

– Tomás BORRÁS (1891-1976), “El millonarísimo”, “—Caballero, ideas a peseta”, in [Casi verdad, casi mentira] (1935) // “La fe del centurión”, in [Cuentos con cielo] (1943) // “Tan contento de ser un cero”, in [La cajita de asombros] (1946).

– Antonio CASTRO LEAL (1896-1981), “El cazador del ritmo universal” (1940), “El espía del alma” (1955), “El coleccionista de almas”, in [El laurel de San Lorenzo] (1959).

– Jorge Luis BORGES (1899-1986), “Funes el memorioso” (1942), in [Ficciones] (1944/1956).

– Bernardo ORTIZ DE MONTELLANO (1899-1949), “El caso de mi amigo Alfazeta”, in [El caso de mi amigo Alfazeta] (1946).

– Samuel ROS (1904-1945), “Batllés Hermanos, S. L.” (1948), in [Con el alma aparte] (2002).

– Alfonso REYES (1889-1959), “El vendedor de felicidad” (1948).

– Carlos VILLAMIL CASTILLO, “El descubridor de la zopilotina”, in [La venganza de los perros y otros cuentos] (1949).

– Eduardo SOLERIESTRUCH (1912-1999), “Sinfonía en azul”, in [Doce cuentos] (1952).

– Álvaro FERNÁNDEZ SUÁREZ (1906-1988), “El asesino en el parque”, in [La ciénaga inútil] (1968).

– César VALLEJO (Perú, 1892-1938), “Teoría de la reputación”, in [Contra el secreto profesional] (1973).

– José María MERINO (1941-), “Del Libro de Naufragios”, in [El viajero perdido] (1990) // “Los libros vacíos”, in [Cuentos del barrio del Refugio] (1994).

– Diego RUIZ (1881-1959), “72, carrer d’Entenza”, “Una resurrecció a París”, in [Contes d’un filòsof] (1908) // “La vaga de l’àngel”, in [Contes de glòria i d’infern] (1911).

– Ramon VINYES (1882-1952), “He retrobat al perruquer Oswald”, in [L’ardenta cavalcada] (1909).

– Alfons MASERAS (1884-1939), “La finestra mágica”, in [Setze contes] (1922).

– Ernest MARTÍNEZ FERRANDO (1891-1965), “Un clown en el camí”, in [Tres històries cruels] (1930).

– Ramon COMAS I MADUELL (1935-1978), “El lector coŀlaborador”, in [Rescat d’ambaixadors] (1970).

– Joan-Claudi FORÊT (1950-), “De pels e d’òmes”, in [Libre dels grands nombres o falses e us de fals] (1998).

– Éphraïm MIKHAËL (Éphraïm-Georges Michel, 1866-1890), “Le magasin de jouets” (1885).

– Édouard DUJARDIN (1861-1949), “Un testament”, “L’enfer”, in [Les Hantises] (1886).

– Henri LAVEDAN (1859-1940), “Un homme peureux” (1888).

– Bernard LAZARE (1865-1903), “Les incarnations” (1891), in [Le Miroir des légendes] (1892).

– Marcel SCHWOB (1867-1905), “La machine à parler” (1891), in [Le Roi au masque d’or] (1892).

– Alphonse ALLAIS (1854-1905), “Une idée lumineuse”, in [Pas de bile!] (1893) // “Un projet de loi”, in [Rose et vert-pomme] (1894).

– Remy de GOURMONT (1858-1915), “Sur le seuil”, in [Histoires magiques] (1894).

– Jean LORRAIN (Paul Alexandre Martin Duval, 1855-1906), “Le possédé”, in [Sensations et souvenirs] (1895).

– Octave MIRBEAU (1848-1917), “Scrupules” (1896).

– Jean RICHEPIN (1849-1926), “La cité des gemmes” (1896), “Le nouvel explosif” (1900), in [Le Coin des fous] (1921) // “La Bibliothèque” (1898).

– Paul VALÉRY (1871-1945), “La Soirée avec Monsieur Teste” (1896) en [Monsieur Teste] (1919).

– Georges RODENBACH, (1855-1898), “Le chasseur des villes” (1899), “L’ami des miroirs” (1899), in [Le Rouet des brumes] (1901/1914).

– Édouard DUCOTÉ (1870-1929), “Une interview” (1900), in [En ce monde ou dans l’autre] (1903).

– SAINT-POL-ROUX (Pierre-Paul Roux, 1861-1940), “Le panier de fruits”, “Le mendiant philosophe”, in [La Rose et les épines du chemin] (1901).

– Paul THÉODORE-VIBERT (1851-1918), “Mammonth et Béhémoth”, “L’homme-microbe”, “La prescience divine”, “Pourquoi je n’aime pas voyager”, “La vie chimique de l’avenir”, “La vie n’existe pas”, “Les feux d’artifice”, “Un canon monstre”, “Comment on devient fou”, “Bureau de placement philanthropique et matrimonial”, “Suppression de l’arrêt des trains dans les grandes villes”, in [Pour lire en automobile] (1901).

– Renée VIVIEN (Pauline Mary Tarn, 1877-1909), “Le magasin d’idées”, in [Du vert au violet] (1903).

– Tristan BERNARD (Paul Bernard, 1866-1947), “Un guerrier, in [Amants et voleurs] (1905).

– Jules SAGERET (1861-1944), “La défense du riche”, en [Paradis laïques] (1908).

– Guillaume APOLLINAIRE (1880-1918), “L’hérésiarque”, “Le juif latin”, “Le passant de Prague”, in [L’Hérésiarque et Cie] (1910) // “Chirurgie esthétique” (1918) // “Traitement thyroïdien” (1918).

– Jean d’ORSAY, “Voulez-vous savoir comment on vit dans la planète Mars?” (1912).

– Edmond ROSTAND (1868-1918), *“Le chant des astres”, in [Le Vol de la Marseillaise] (1919).

– Franz HELLENS (Frédéric Van Ermengen, 1881-1972), “Un crime incodifié”, in [Nocturnal, précédé de quinze histoires] (1919).

– André GIDE (1869-1951), Corydon (1924).

– Jean DESS (HIXE), “L’économiseur de mouvements”, “Camping chez soi”, in [Pour lire en parachute] (1932).

– André DAHL (1886-1932), “La vraie fin du monde”, in [Contes pour la comtesse] (1933).

– Michel de GHELDERODE (Adhémar Martens, 1898-1962), “L’amateur des reliques”, in [Sortilèges] (1941).

– Marcel BÉALU (1908-1993), “Le Fabricant des rides”, in [L’Araignée d’or] (1964).

– Louis PAUWELS (1920-1997), Blumroch l’admirable ou Le déjeuner du surhomme (1976).

– Ursicin G. [Gion] G. [Gieli] DERUNGS (1935-), “Il vegl e la steila”, in [Il cavalut verd ed auter] (1988).

– Carlo DOSSI (1849-1910), “I lettori”, in [Ritratti umani. Campionario] (1885).

– Luigi CAPUANA (1839-1915), «Un uomo felice», in [Il decameroncino] (1901) / [La voluttà di creare] (1911).

– Giovanni PAPINI (1881-1956), “La rivolta dei ragazzi” (1913), “La conquista delle nuvole”, “Il nemico del sonno”, “La legge contro i poeti”, “La riforma del galateo”, in [Buffonate] (1914) // “Musicisti”, “La “FOM””, “La storia a ritroso”, “Thormon il soteriologo”, “Il cannibale pentito”, “Nuovissime città”, “Il trust dei fantasmi”, “Le idee di Benrubi”, “Processo agli innocenti”, “L’Egolatria”, “La nuova scultura”, “Il teatro senza attori”, “Filomania”, “Stelle”, “Caccavone”, “Il Conte di Saint-Germain”, “Il carnefice nostalgico”, “La chirurgia morale”, “La malattia come medicina”, “L’imbestiatore”, “Il Duca Hermosilla di Salvatierra”, “Il ritorno di Pitagora”, in [Gog] (1931) // “Il più grande scrittore” (1934), “Proposta di sterminio” (1935), in [Figure umane] (1940) // “Un dantista di campagna” (1942), “Il profeta in bigio” (1950), “Per i ladri e per gli assassini” (1952), in [La sesta parte del mondo] (1954) // “Le osservazioni del dottor Ciù o dei mutamenti dell’Europa” (1948), “Il fabricante di nuvole” (1948), “L’uomo d’oro” (1949), “La manifattura delle maschere” (1950), in [Le pazzie del poeta] (1950) // “Una paurosa festa”, “La biblioteca d’acciaio”, “L’astronomo deluso”, “Notizie dell’aldilà”, “Il nemico della natura”, “L’Ignotica”, “La rivincita del selvaggio”, “L’Istituto del Regresso”, “Il trasnvolatore solitario”, “Le Veneri brutte”, “L’elogio del fango”, “L’interrogativo del monaco”, “Il Congresso dei Panclasti”, “Morte ai morti”, “La predica della superbia”, “Il grande savio”, “L’unico abitante del mondo”, “L’abate e le peccatrici”, “Volete la pace?”, “Ucciso dall’amore”, “La resurrezione della materia”, “Tutto da rifare”, “La storia universale a volo di corvo”, “Il neocosmo”, “Il mascolinismo”, in [Il libro nero] (1951).

– Massimo BONTEMPELLI (1878-1960), “Macchina per contemplare”, in [La donna dei miei sogni e altre avventure moderne] (1925) // Colloqui col Neosofista, in [Il Neosofista e altri scritti] (1929).

– Riccardo BACCHELLI (1891-1985), “L’ultimo licantropo”, “I discepoli di Emmaus”, in [La fine di Atlantide ed altre favole lunatiche] (1942) / [Tutte le novelle] (1952).

– Alberto MORAVIA (1907-1990), “Un mendicante” (1947) // “Spia per scommesa” (1947).

– Giovanni CAVICCHIOLI (1894-1964), “Quadratura del circulo”, “Origine della guerra”, in [Nuove favole] (1960).

– Aldo PALAZZESCHI (1885-1974), “Il senso politico”, “La parola è d’argento”, ““Diomio che freddo! Miodio che caldo!””, in [Il buffo integrale] (1966).

– Tommaso LANDOLFI (1908-1979), “Alla stazione”, in [Racconti impossibili] (1966).

– Mario BRELICH (1910-1982), L’opera del tradimento (1975).

– Gesualdo BUFALINO (1920-1996), “L’ingegnere di Babele”, in [L’uomo invaso e altre invenzioni] (1986).

– Oscar LEMNARU (Oscar Holzman, 1907-1968), “Puterea prefăcătoriei”, in [Omul şi umbra] (1946).

– Mihai MĂNIUŢIU (1954-), “Don Scargrav”, in [Un zeu aproape muritor] (1982).

MONOLOGIC MOCK PROPOSALS in English and the Romance languages from 1871 (date of James Thomson’s “Proposal for the Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery”)

Only works published in volumes of fiction or literary magazines.

Flash proposals (less than a page) and proposal in epistolary form (except open letters) are excluded.

– James THOMSON (1834-1882), “Proposal for the Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery” (1871), in [Essays and Phantasies] (1881).

– Frank SCHAEFFER (1952-), Harold FICKETT (1953-), A Modest Proposal for Peace, Prosperity, and Happiness (1984).

– Tomás BORRÁS (1891-1976), “S.U.D.E. (sindicato único de enfermos)”, in [La rueda de colores] (1962).

– Max AUB (1903-1972), “Sesión secreta” (1964), in [Historias de mala muerte] (1965).

– Augusto MONTERROSO (1921-2003), “La exportación de cerebros”, in [Movimiento perpetuo] (1972).

– René AVILÉS FABILA (1940-2016), “En defensa del plagio” (1986), in [Cuentos y descuentos] and [Fantasías en carrusel] (1995/2001).

– Javier FERNÁNDEZ (1971-), “Diez razones para ver TV en lugar de leer un libro”, in [La grieta] (2007).

– Ramon REVENTÓS (1882-1923), “Matrimoni entre ciutats” (1912) ), in [Proses] (1953).

– Òscar PÀMIES (1961-), “Com resoldre el problema de les grans conurbacions”, “Perdre’s”, “Camí de llum”, in [Com serà la fi del món: Maneres que tindrà de presentar-se’ns i com preparar-s’hi anímicament] (1996).

– Auguste de VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM (1838-1889), “La découverte de M. Grave” (1873) / “L’affichage céleste”, “La machine à gloire” (1874), in [Contes cruels] (1883) // “Motion du Dr. Tribulat Bonhomet touchant l’utilisation des tremblements de terre” (1887), in [Tribulat Bonhomet] (1887).

– Rémy de GOURMONT (1858-1915), “La fête nationale” (1892).

– Alphonse ALLAIS (1854-1905), “Les ballons horo-captifs”, “Les culs-de-jatte militaires”, in [On n’est pas des bœufs] (1896) // “Radicale proposition”, in [Le bec en l’air] (1897) // “De quelques réformes cosmiques”, “Autre mode d’utilisation de la baleine”, “Légère modification à apporter dans le cours de la Seine”, in [Pour cause de fin de bail] (1899) // “Un nouveau projet de recrutement de la noblesse”, “Insularisation de la France”, in [Ne nous frappons pas] (1900).

– Paul THÉODORE-VIBERT (1851-1918), “L’âme éclair”, “Télégraphie inter-astrale”, “La survie assurée”, “L’art de s’habiller avec les nuages”, “Le Klondike”, “Quand le terrain devient cher”, “Les maisons en chair et os”, “La voie fleurie”, in [Pour lire en automobile] (1901) // “L’encombrement des grandes villes”, “Service anthropométrique universel”, “La musique à domicile”, In [Pour lire en traîneau] (1908)

– Alfred JARRY (1873-1907), “Les piétons écraseurs” (1901) // “Battre les femmes” (1902).

– Georges FOUREST (1864-1945), “De la peine de mort au point de vue financier”, in [Contes pour les satyres] (1923).

– Pierre DAC (André Isaac, 1893-1975), “La houille dormante” (1939).

– Didier ANZIEU (1923-1999), “Un musée futur”, in [Contes à rebours] (1975/1987/1995).

– Giovanni PAPINI (1881-1956), “Le maschere”, “Il rifacimento della terra”, “Ripulitura difficile”, in [Gog] (1931).

– Luce D’ERAMO (1925-2001), “Una proposta risolutiva” (1989).

PROPHETIC EPICS

Not only Zarathustra: Jonas (1900), de Iwan Gilkin, a revision of Jonah’s myth in the context of modern “prophetic epics”

*: in verse or prosimeter.

Biblical apocrhypha are excluded.

– Alfred TENNYSON (1909-1892), *“The Ancient Sage”, in [Tiresias and Other Poems] (1885).

– Kahlil GIBRAN (1883-1931), The Prophet (1923) – The Garden of the Prophet (1933).

– Friedrich NIETZSCHE (1844-1900), Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885).

– Hermann HESSE (1877-1962), “Zarathustras Wiederkehr” (1919).

– Rudolf PANNWITZ (1881-1969), “Zarathustras andere Versuchung”, in [Trilogie des Lebens] (1929).

– Ludwig DERLETH (1870-1948), *Der Heilige (1971-1972).

– TEIXEIRA DE PASCOAES (Joaquim Pereira Teixeira de Vasconcelos, 1877-1952), *Jesús e Pã (1903).

– Fernando PESSOA (1888-1935), “O livro do rei Igorab” [1915-1916] (2017).

– Paulo COELHO (1947-), Manuscrito encontrando em Accra (2012).

– Ricardo BURGUETE (1871-1937), Así hablaba Zorrapastro (1899).

– Gregorio MARTÍNEZ SIERRA (María de la O Lejárraga, 1874-1974), «Profecía», in [Flores de escarcha] (1900).

– Guillermo VALENCIA (1873-1943), *“La parábola del monte” (1905), in [Ritos] (1914).

– Julio BURELL (1859-1919), “Para los violentos”, in [Artículos] (1925).

– Roberto BRENES MESÉN (1874-1947), *Rasur o semana de esplendor (1946).

– Pierre-Simon BALLANCHE (1776-1847), La Vision d’Hébal (1831).

– Augustin CHAHO (1811-1858), Paroles d’un voyant (1834).

– Iwan GILKIN (1858-1924), Jonas (1900).

– Giuseppe CARTELLA GELARDI (1885-1962), “Il canto dei liberi”, in [In memoria di Pietro Gori] (1912).

– Vincenzo CARDARELLI (Nazareno Caldarelli, 1887-1959), “Un’uscita di Zarathustra” (1919), in [Viaggi nel tempo] (1920) / [Prologhi. Viaggi. Favole] (1931).

Sure Solacer of Human Cares – The Joys of Tuning in to SF Radio Theatre

by Mina

I began by reading what the “Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy” has to say about imagination. Here is a summary of my understanding of the salient points (imagine the voice of Peter Jones as the “book” in “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” BBC radio serialisation as you read this). There are two ways to use your imagination: in a transcendent manner that “enables one to escape from or look beyond the world as it is”, and in an instructive manner that “enables one to learn about the world as it is.” SF and sci-phi ask us to do both. Imagination is not the same as belief, although they are both ways of interpreting the world around us: both involve holding an image or representation in your mind. There are also similarities in how imagination and memory work: “both typically involve imagery, both typically concern what is not presently the case, and both frequently involve perspectival representations.” Both also involve mental time travel, remembering the past works in a similar way in your mind to imagining the future. Finally, imagination helps us to understand other minds, to pretend and recognise pretence, to characterise psychopathology, to engage with the arts, to think creatively, to acquire knowledge about possibilities and to interpret figurative language.


We use imagination in all aspects of our lives but here I will be focusing on how we use it recreationally. Films, TV series, books and radio dramas all “catch our imagination”. With SF, we relax by postulating alternate realities. But where our imagination truly flies, in my opinion, is through SF radio theatre. We suspend disbelief while we listen: we behave as if we believe that other worlds or ways of being actually exist. It is a temporary state of mind for we snap back into our everyday reality afterwards (unless we are suffering from some form of psychosis). With the advent of TV, radio dramas declined in many countries but continued to thrive in Britain and Germany. Radio plays are different from film: “with no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story. It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension” (http://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/topics/sound/radio-drama/). I prefer radio plays to films of my favourite SF classics because it leaves me free to visualise things as I wish (for example, the wonderful adaptations of all of John Wyndham’s novels).

I will begin with “Solaris”, of which I do not think there has been a truly satisfying film version made – I find Steven Soderbergh’s most recent film adaptation starring Geroge Clooney oddly bland. Hattie Naylor’s 2007 radio adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s book, however, is wonderful in its simplicity. There are few sound effects, only very occasional music and just five voices; yet it creates a wonderful atmosphere. Inside the CD sleeve note, Polly Thomas writes that “Solaris” offered “the opportunity to play with the imagination and invent a new world through sound… we created layers of sound texture”. And the production team did just that: footsteps ringing, sound echoing in large spaces or dampened in smaller confines, and using the finest instrument, the human voice – the narrator, in particular. It is a haunting radio drama, which explores imagination, illusion, memory, desire, grief, regret, guilt and wonder. It looks at the parts of the mind we normally ignore, what makes us flawed and human. It explores science, faith, redemption, men and the birth of gods.

Although the film “Blade Runner” is good, I prefer the radio play which keeps Philip K. Dick’s original title “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. Jonathan Holloway’s 2014 radio adaptation is done in a style reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe detective stories. The radio drama spends more time on the philosophical questions than the film, particularly what makes a person human and alive. There is a blurring of the lines between android and human that works very well when you only hear the voices. Its use of music and sound effects make it feel more like a film soundtrack than a radio play.

One of my favourite radio serialisations is James Follet’s “Earthsearch” (1981). It has ten episodes, each ending with a cliff-hanger, much like similar dramas in the 1950s. The production team did not have enough money for a musical soundtrack, so they chose to use cheesy sound effects such as clicks, whirring, whooshing, beeps and blasts that serve to add to its charm. The CD’s sleeve note states that Earthsearch is “a memorable attempt to bring hard SF notions to listeners in the form of an exciting, character-driven adventure”. And character-driven it is, with a small cast. The spaceship’s crew of four each have their own well-defined personalities, but most interesting, oddly enough, are the megalomaniac onboard computers Angel (Ancillary Guardian Environment and Life) 1 and Angel 2. The scriptwriter began with one idea: a ship of humans returns to our solar system to find the Earth gone. We are given hints of what has passed over the preceding millennia: the Solaric Empire, First Footprint City, the dregs of humanity and the computer wars. The relationship between time and space plays a crucial part in the plot. It is also a story of the loss of innocence and a journey to find a mythical paradise. It was so successful that James Follet went on to write a sequel “Earthsearch II” (1982) and a prequel “Earthsearch: Mindwarp (2006)”.

I will now focus on two radio plays that explore true sci-phi themes. Mike Walker wrote two award-winning radio dramas that explore Artificial Intelligence (AI): “Alpha” (2001) and “Omega” (2002). Both play on “I think therefore I am” and examine what makes us alive. In “Alpha”, we meet a Catholic priest having a crisis of faith. He acts as a sort of trouble-shooter for the Vatican. He is sent on a final mission by the Holy See to investigate Project Alpha, which turns out to be the first sentient AI. The priest interviews Alpha in an attempt to determine if it is truly self-aware, if it has developed consciousness and whether it has a soul. Alpha challenges the priest’s faith and displays a definite personality: it is playful, a little cruel, and determined to survive (it states that good is what helps you survive; bad is the opposite). Alpha prefers to be called Sophia and insists that she is a machine, born of complexity, and that, like all life, she is made from stardust. She and the priest also make an emotional connection over a shared memory.


Alpha proves to the priest that she can travel anywhere in cyberspace and access any system. For her, time is not a prison, it is a door. The priest replies that humans, however, are prisoners in time. He admits that he believes Sophia to be real and that he will be committing murder when he is forced to switch her off. Sophia tells him that there will be others like her and the priest wonders if humans will prove to be a dead end in evolution and AIs like Sophia the future. They discuss the priest’s feelings of guilt and hope for salvation. Sophia thanks him for teaching her about conscience, as she needed to understand it. The priest switches off the computer, but he does not believe he has killed Sophia, for she was already wrapped around the world, like a web. He is proud to have been Alpha Sophia’s teacher and he wonders what she will become when she grows up. He himself seeks a simpler life and asks to go back home to Nicaragua, to try to be a priest, to listen to the frogs sing as they did in the childhood memory he shared with Sophia. Music plays an important role because, through it, Sophia has understood beauty, and she plays a fragment of choral music to the priest, suggesting that she too has a soul. Music is also used to mark the passing of time, which is not linear to Sophia in the way it is to the priest.

Where “Alpha” looks at the birth of an AI, “Omega” examines its death. Initially, this radio drama seems to be about an architect John Stone and his reaction to his daughter’s miraculous recovery after a car crash. On the surface, the tale revisits the tension between science and religion, and the nature of miracles and faith. But small fissures in “reality” help us to realise that John is a sentient computer programme. The people in his world are actually a team of scientists experimenting with artificial consciousness. To them, John is the result of mathematical probability at a quantum level. However, one of the scientists, Kate, develops a conscience and tells John what he is. John struggles to accept that he is not human because he feels human. Realising his total lack of freedom in the experiment, he asks to remain himself or “to be nothing”. Kate helps him to “die” a good death and destroys all the research that led to John’s creation. Her boss, Brandt, believes that science justifies everything (he clearly personifies scientific hubris); Kate discovers that becoming a creator comes with responsibility for your creation (she shows humility and compassion). Kate recognises that John has developed self-awareness, feelings, ambitions and dreams. His psyche is undistinguishable from that of a human being. Music is used to create a dream-like quality, mixed with sounds that are important to John, like a heartbeat, child’s laughter and the sea.

Germany boasts as fine a tradition of SF radio dramas (Hörspiele) as the UK, ranging from Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s social satire in “Das Unternehmen der Wega” (1954) to Frank Gustavus’ fun adaptation of Conor Kostick’s “Saga” (2008) set within a computer game with sentient characters. My first example is George Robertson’s 1971 “Rückkehr aus dem Weltall” (“Return from Space”; translated from Canadian English by Gerhard Pasternak). It is set in the future after a nuclear disaster where the remains of humanity live in Australasia and Indonesia, including the descendants of the scientists who caused the nuclear disaster in the first place; mutant humanoids also exist in Europe in a barren world that will eventually run out of oxygen. The scientists of the space programme in Melbourne want to find a new world to inhabit before then; the politicians want to find way to produce artificial oxygen so that they can remain on the earth they control. A spaceship returns from an earlier mission with the body of a mummified scientist and evidence to suggest that the ship managed to travel faster than the speed of light. The politicians are disturbed by this and threaten to stop the space programme, so its director decides to launch the next ship clandestinely with its crew of four, including John Taggart and his second wife Sheila.

The crew do discover a habitable new planet in the Alpha Centauri system, which they christen Paradise. Sheila suggests staying but John decides to return to earth to persuade the remains of humanity to move to Paradise. During the return journey, the ship hits a tear in space and time and travels faster than speed of light, thus arriving at earth in the past before the nuclear event has taken place. Two of the crew take the ship’s shuttle to earth to try to warn humanity of their future fate. Sheila dies saving John’s life and he realises he loved her, even if the words were never spoken between them. John is stuck in orbit around the earth, wondering if the past can be changed. The sound effects are limited to the odd whoosh or beep. And the drama has a slightly cold feel to it. This I think is on purpose to stress the scientists’ need to see logic in everything and science as the answer to all problems, even the ones it has caused. This lack of emotion also works well to bring into sharp relief the tragedy at the end, both on a personal level and, we suspect, for the whole of humanity who seem bent on self-destruction. 

Stefan Wilke’s “Mondglas” (1999) also asks questions about the future of humanity. It begins with an interview with an old man, Winston, about the return of the spaceship Centaurus (we hear soothing birdsong in the background to lull us into a false sense of security). Winston recounts that Centaurus brought back microorganisms from Loki, a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. He remembers Alan T, the AI steering the ship, who tells Winston of having had dreams, even nightmares, during its journey. Alan T seems confused and amnesiac and we wonder if it is lying. Winston was the scientist who developed Alan T and he is presented as an arrogant, macho scientist, obsessed with proving he is right. The microscopic life forms Alan T retrieved from Loki are considered harmless. He also brings back a form of glass, the Mondglas or “moon glass” of the title. This material is light, strong and beautiful, and it proves to be recyclable. After 20 years, it takes over from normal glass and is used for everything, including jewellery. Winston tells the reporter of his Moon Glass Theory: he believes that the moon glass has emasculated scientists. Although there are no longer any wars on earth, neither are there any new scientific breakthroughs. The last progress made was the solution for recycling moon glass, which came to a female scientist in a dream.

Winston tells the reporter that he interviewed Alan T one last time before it was deactivated. He stresses that Alan T had dreams because it met a problem it could not solve with logic. In the final interview, Winston “hypnotises” Alan T and asks him about his dreams. Winston comes to the conclusion that Alan T did not dream; rather, it was tampered with so it would disregard the reality it discovered, that is, that there was a highly developed civilisation on Loki that did not want contact with such an aggressive species. Winston feels that it is the nature of (a masculine) humanity to want to conquer new worlds. That is why he thinks that the inhabitants of Loki sent the moon glass which acts like a type of drug, reducing the drive and aggression of humans (making them more female and conciliatory). The reporter was granted an interview with Winston, as long as she was not wearing any moon glass jewellery during the interview. When she leaves, the reporter decides not to put on the moon glass necklace she left with a nurse. When the nurse asks why she is leaving her necklace behind, the reporter replies that it is “an experiment with an uncertain outcome”. She will publish an article on Winston’s Moon Glass Theory about the influence of moon glass, which she wants to test for herself. Despite Winston’s unapologetic machismo, he hands over this task to a woman. I particularly enjoyed this radio drama’s play on sexist as well as SF tropes.

Why do I think SF/sci-phi radio dramatizations are so important? In my opinion, film is a pervasive medium – after years of watching Star Trek in its many guises, it has inevitably influenced what I imagine when I read the words “shuttle craft” in a story. A friend of mine who is a gifted artist feels that she only managed truly original work as a child; as an adult, her mind has been influenced by other art and images from the outside world. Radio dramas (like reading) allow us to flex our imaginative muscles that can atrophy if we only watch SF films where everything has already been imagined for us. And imagination allows us to ponder the deeper questions of life, the universe and everything. I will finish by quoting part of Emily Brontë’s poem “To imagination”, where she calls flights of fancy her “true friend” and solace from the pain in life:

But thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o’er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death.
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet, still, in evening’s quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

~

Bio:

Mina is a translator by day, an insomniac by night. Reading Asimov’s robot stories and Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids at age eleven may have permanently warped her view of the universe. She publishes essays in Sci Phi Journal as well as “flash” fiction on speculative sci-fi websites and hopes to work her way up to a novella or even a novel some day.

Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Directors of CYBIMPLANT INC held at 10:00 AM on 14 May 2036

AS RECORDED BY: RICK NOVY

PRESENT:

CHAIRMAN:

Kermit Sayman

PRESIDENT/CEO:

Louis Gormant

VICE PRESIDENTS:

Derek Fong

Khin-Khin Tanaka

Michel LaFond

DIRECTORS:

Jose Herrera

QUORUM: Met

AGENDA: (1) Action Regarding Delinquent Payments on Majority-Owned implant customers.

1.1  The board considered and unanimously approved the Draft Minutes of the meeting of 7 May, 2036 (DOC:CII-BM-20360507).

2.1  Mr. Sayman opened discussion of the first and only agenda item by displaying a graphic depicting the P&L figures for the current quarter. Cybimplant is bleeding capital and projections indicate a loss for the seventh consecutive quarter.  Mr. Sayman also reminded the board that Cybimplant has not issued a quarterly dividend for over a year, and B shares are at a historic low on the NASDAQ.

2.2  Mr. Sayman presented figures showing majority-owned customers as a percentage of all customers to be 7.2%, numbering 381,600 individuals. The percentage of delinquent accounts is 17%, numbering nearly 65,000 individuals at a total cost of over $90M in bad debt per month.

2.3  Mr. Sayman proposed Cybimplant implement a repossession program to recover the bad debt and bring the quarter into the black. He also suggested Cybimplant could initiate a secondary market program to monetize the repossessed implants.

2.4  Mr. Sayman requested open discussion on the agenda topic.

2.5  Mr. LaFond moved that the discussion of a secondary market program be tabled.

2.6  The board recorded its approval to table a discussion of a secondary market program.

2.7  Mr. Herrera asked Mr. LaFond for an approximate ROI on the cost of implementing and maintaining a repossession team. Mr. LaFond estimated ROI to be 41% during the first year, gradually dropping to a baseline of 15% over five years under a logistic function model.

2.8  Mr. Tanaka asked Mr. LaFond whether a 41% ROI would be sufficient to overcome the negative cash flow for Q2. Mr. LaFond said initial calculations indicate that as very likely.

2.9  Mr. Fong suggested shareholders will demand a dividend in Q3 if Cybimplant shows a profit in Q2. Mr. Gormant took the action item to write a shareholder letter to be mailed with Q2 results.

2.10 Mr. Herrera inquired whether a repossession program would include purchase plan delinquencies or be restricted to lease delinquencies.

2.11 Mr. Sayman reminded the board that purchase plan customers agreed to different language and expressed concern that the legal department would need beyond the end of Q2 to complete analysis and create language to justify repossession defensible in a court of law.

2.12 The board unanimously approved tabling a discussion of purchase plan delinquency repossession until the legal team completes its analysis.

2.13 Mr. LaFond requested clarification on whether life-critical implants would be included in the repossession program, as not including them might impact the ability of Cybimplant to eliminate the Q2 negative cash flow. Mr. Gormant reminded the board that lease customers must agree to all contract terms before an implant is installed, regardless of the implant purpose, and repossession of delinquent leased equipment is always a possibility in any industry.

2.14 Mr. Tanaka expressed concern that repossession of life-critical implants might result in a drain on revenues in the form of wrongful death lawsuit defense. Mr. Sayman stated that lawsuits are a recognized and budgeted cost of doing business and wrongful death lawsuits were expected to be well within acceptable numbers for the industry.

2.15 Mr. Gormant moved that the proposal be brought to a vote. The motion was seconded by Mr. Fong. The board recorded its unanimous approval of the creation of a repossession program for delinquencies under lease for majority-owned customers. Mr. Tanaka was given the action item to implement the decision immediately.

3.1 Mr. Gormant moved to adjourn. The motion was seconded by Mr. Herrera. The board adjourned at 10:38 AM.

~

Bio:

Rick Novy is an engineer by day and writer by night. He lives in Arizona. Learn more at ricknovy.com.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bug?

by Mina

The words “virus” and “pandemic” are all around us. The media is constantly bombarding us with them and friendly acronyms such as “COVID-19” and “SARS”. We are currently living in a climate of fear and anxiety most of us would prefer to find only in SF movies about alien invasions and post-apocalyptic futures. It is a fear of the unseen because we cannot see the virus that has become part of our everyday lives, as have lockdowns, confinement and isolation. We have lost our freedom of movement and countless small liberties we used to take for granted. Have we entered an era of mass hysteria or are the measures imposed upon us right and reasonable? Are we on the verge of a breakdown in our social order? These are the sorts of questions often posed in Sci-Phi, so I set myself the task of finding parallels in SF. I have tried to avoid horror fiction, but all good disaster SF has an element of horror and formless fear to it.

The best place to start is with the classics of this genre: H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898) and John Wydnham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951). The War of the Worlds is, on the surface, an alien invasion story. Digging deeper, it is an exploration of societal and personal collapse. The narrator and other main characters are never named, giving it a universal feel: this could happen to you or to me. The Martian invasion in this story can be likened to the spread of a virus, just with the unseen made viscerally visible. Wells himself drew parallels to the social devastation wrought by British imperialism and, today, we could draw parallels to rampant globalisation obliterating all resistance in its path.

The alien tripods protecting the fragile bodies of the Martians come armed with “heat rays” and a poisonous “black smoke” – we cannot help but think of chemical warfare today. This thought comes with uncomfortable questions for – are not humans an infestation that needs to be wiped out from the point of view of the “superior” Martians? As well as their deadly weapons, the Martians bring with them the “red weed” to take over the surface of our planet like a vibrant parasite. In the end, the Martians are killed by simple pathogens, unseen infectious agents. This is the closest parallel to COVID because we too, in our hubris, could be wiped out by such microscopic organisms.

My favourite adaptation of the novel is Jeff Wayne’s 1978 rock opera with the mesmerising voice of Richard Burton as the narrator. The basic plot of the novel was maintained in the rock opera but several details were changed, for example if we look at the SF anthem, “The Spirit of Man”. In it, the nameless pastor from the novel becomes Nathaniel whose wife Beth, a character that does not exist in the book, argues with him as he despairs. Nathaniel has been driven mad by the invasion and is ranting and raving about the end of times:

“Listen, do you hear them drawing near
In their search for the sinners?
Feeding on the power of our fear
And the evil within us?
Incarnation of Satan’s creation of all that we dread
When the demons arrive those alive would be better off dead!”

The pastor is lost in his fear: for him the world has descended into hell and there is no hope of salvation, not even for a chosen few. Beth refuses to accept this:

“No Nathaniel, no, there must be more to life
There has to be a way that we can
Restore to life the love we used to know
(No) Nathaniel, no, there must be more to life
There has to be a way that we can
Restore to life the light that we have lost.”

Beth believes in the spirit of man, that humanity will survive somehow. As Nathaniel sings of darkness and demons, she clings to love and light with unwavering faith. Interestingly, the power of religious faith is not really part of the original story. In the novel, the narrator has a nervous breakdown after the ignominious end of the Martians and is helped by kind strangers, so there is perhaps some faith in basic humanity. Upon his return home to find his wife alive and well, the narrator still cannot shake off the anxiety caused by his recent ordeal, as humanity cannot hope to survive a disaster of such proportions unscathed. Unlike a great deal of disaster SF, we have no hero saving the world; humanity is saved by pure chance.

Nightmarish as Wells’ scenario might be, it remains small in scale. All the action occurs in and around Woking, touching briefly upon South London. The scale of Wyndam’s The Day of the Triffids is much larger – it is a global disaster. The aliens are replaced by a manmade enemy: bioengineered carnivorous plants capable of locomotion, armed with stingers and poison. The triffids could be compared to an opportunistic virus that spreads after a freak “meteor storm” blinds most of humanity (the protagonist wakes from an eye operation and several weeks with bandaged eyes to a world gone to hell, ironically spared permanent blindness because he could not witness the lights in the sky). Social order breaks down completely and the triffids sweep through like a ferociously efficient pandemic. These monsters do not seem particularly intelligent, acting mostly on instinct, but they only have to bide their time and strike at the weakest, just like COVID kills those with the lowest defences.

There is much ordinary courage in The Day of the Triffids with the protagonist/narrator and the small family unit he manages to build surviving against all odds. There is even a love story which, although it is a pragmatic partnership in many ways, is real and solid in a disintegrating world. Towards the end of the novel, the protagonist reflects without bitterness that humanity probably brought the disaster on itself, theorising that the “meteor shower” was actually the result of manmade satellite weapons systems being set off by accident and producing blinding radiation. He hopes that future generations will learn from the mistakes of their ancestors. He and his family unit will retreat with others to an island they can defend (the Isle of Wight) until they can find a way to fight back. The spirit of man does survive in this novel.

The zombie apocalypse film 28 Days Later about a rage-inducing virus spreading from animals (chimpanzees) and causing societal collapse in the UK clearly borrows a lot of ideas from The Day of the Triffids (for example, the protagonist wakes up from a coma to a devastated world). The infected can no longer function cognitively and simply starve to death. The sequel 28 Weeks Later shows the “Rage virus” being spread to Europe (the pandemic originally having been contained within Britain) by an asymptomatic carrier – one of the biggest fears in any pandemic scenario.

Ray Bradbury’s short-story collection The Martian Chronicles(1950) contains a short story that also touches upon disease, “And the Moon Be Still as Bright”. In this story, the fourth manned expedition to Mars discovers that the Martians have been mostly wiped out by chickenpox (an infection caused by a virus), brought by one of the previous expeditions. It is ultimately a story about colonisation. Bradbury ponders on whether there is a right or wrong form of colonisation, with wrong being an attempt to recreate Earth (thereby repeating old mistakes) and right having respect for the fallen civilisation (and learning from it). We are left with the question – are humans an infestation on Mars or will they become the new Martians in a brave new world? This question is highlighted in another short story in this collection, “Night Meeting”, where two characters meet outside time but without us knowing which one represents the past and which the future. It is almost irrelevant as civilisations will always rise and fall and disease will always be one agent of change.

The Star Trek canon also examines viruses in different contexts. The most fun episode is “Macrocosm” in Season 3 of Voyager. In it, we see Captain Janeway single-handedly fighting giant viruses in a spoof of Aliens. She is combating the result of a viral infection with insect-like macro-viruses flying around the ship infecting the crew and propagating from their living flesh. The doctor and Janeway manage to exterminate the giant bugs in the end with an antiviral gas. In reality, antiviral medication cannot be produced in less than one hour.

In the episode “The Quickening” in Season 4 of Deep Space Nine, Dr Bashir tries to find a cure for the “blight” caused by biological warfare, where the series’ archenemy, the Jem Hadar (the military arm of the Dominion), infect a planet that resisted them. Bashir is unable to cure it but finds an anti-viral treatment that acts as a vaccine – when injected into pregnant women, the baby is born disease-free. This is the hope in any pandemic, that a vaccine can be found to preserve at least the next generation. Ironically, Earth later hits back at the Dominion by infecting an unwitting carrier who, in turn, infects other Changelings like himself. Deep Space Nine does not shy away from the tough questions of whether anyone (including humans) has the right to use biological warfare to potentially wipe out an entire race.

The most interesting viral analogies are the indirect ones made by the existence of the Borg. We first encounter them in Star Trek – The Next Generation. In the double episode, “The Best of Both Worlds” (which ends season 3 and begins season 4), Captain Picard is “assimilated” and briefly becomes Locutus, a mouthpiece for the Borg Collective’s hive mind. The Borg are clearly presented as a militaristic virus – taking over entire races, using “nanoprobes” to infect their technology, and disposing of the weak.

My final example is a less well-known film, Daybreakers. It is an interesting mix of SF and vampire tropes, where a plague caused by an infected bat has transformed most of the world’s population into vampires. The remaining humans are captured and harvested for blood but, as the human population shrinks, there is a shortage of blood for food. Vampires deprived of blood and who drink their own blood instead become psychotic and increasingly bat-like “subsiders” – a whole underworld culture is suggested with blood as the currency. The protagonist is a vampire scientist attempting to create synthetic blood. He discovers that an accidental cure has been found for vampirism – using the right amount of sun and water. Drinking the blood of a “cured” vampire will cure the drinker too, but the protagonist must fight against the corporate powers that do not want to change the status quo and lose their profits.

To summarise, SF is full of disaster scenarios involving viruses beyond our control, whether they kill humans or alien enemies. Sci-Phi also goes further, where humanity itself may be seen to be the disease, asking hard questions about colonisation and colonialism. Viruses can also become a much more abstract agent that may transform rather than kill us, although the transformation is rarely a desirable one. I expect that this is partly because a plot where we all are infected with, for example, love and peace, would make for a very short story.

The fears and anxieties triggered by COVID are primal ones and, as we have seen, ones that are widely explored in SF and Sci-Phi fiction. So how can we best respond to the panic arising both at a social level (e.g. mass hysteria or a breakdown of social systems) and a personal one (e.g. people suffering from increased anxiety and compulsive disorders, or depression due to isolation)? I would like to finish with this quote from C. S. Lewis. As you read it, replace “atomic bomb” with “coronavirus” in your head:

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year… or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me… you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways…

… If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things – praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts – not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

Of course, C. S. Lewis had not met the concept of “social distancing” but the central tenet stands: we must face our fear of death head on, whatever form it takes. And Sci-Phi gives us a safe forum in which to stare straight into the eye of the monster.

[My thanks to Ian H for drawing my attention to the quote from C. S. Lewis.]

~

Bio:

Mina is a translator by day, an insomniac by night. Reading Asimov’s robot stories and Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids at age eleven may have permanently warped her view of the universe. She publishes essays in Sci Phi Journal as well as “flash” fiction on speculative sci-fi websites and hopes to work her way up to a novella or even a novel some day.

On The Vastness Of Space And The Paucity Of Inhabited Worlds

by David Barber

St Augustine, a disciple of St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in the years around 380AD, sat at the feet of that eminent Father alongside the unknown author of the Codex Alexandria. We may surmise this from the following facts.

As Augustine tells in Book IV of the Confessions, “When he [Ambrose] was reading, his eyes ran over the page and though his heart perceived the sense, his lips were silent.” The sight of a man reading for himself and not for others hints at books becoming their own justification. The Alexandria codex is fragmentary, but bears a dedication praising the learned Ambrose, and it too mentions this silent readership, tacita lectoris.

We know that a complete copy of the work, subsequently titled On The Vastness Of Space And The Paucity Of Inhabited Worlds, was made for the library of the Bishop of Antioch in the opening years of the fifth century, since it is described in the catalogue of books demanded by Theodosius II.

That new Emperor at Constantinople, already forced to accept the division of the Roman empire into East and West and unwilling to risk the fragile unity of the Church, cast suspicious eyes upon the See of Antioch, where the heresy of Arianism had only latterly been extinguished.

The copyist describes the work as containing the most perfect proof of the existence of God, and a lemma which insisted that the divine law, or necessitas, by which God made our world the laws of physics, as we might say – must allow the plurality of worlds, since to argue otherwise imposes limitations upon God.

In addition, crowded into the margin in another hand is the observation: concludes the absence of other inhabited worlds – which must follow if the proof is true.

About the nature of this vanished proof we can only speculate. It should not surprise us that merely human arguments about the existence of God do not resist scrutiny. The lesser may not contain the greater. Yet tellingly, no proof before has demanded that humankind be unique. Perhaps some ideas are fathered only once.

In the centuries since Ambrose, Augustine and the author of the lost Codex, we have indeed found a plurality of worlds, and our servants, the silicon descendants of our own minds, have visited some of them. 

And though we have listened carefully, it seems we are alone. As far as we can tell – and these days that is very far indeed – except for the miracle of ourselves, the universe is silent. Science has determined these facts but does not offer an explanation. It may be that others see no need to read aloud; or perhaps it is an infinite theatre with a solitary actor and no audience. In the sonorous Latin of that unknown hand, the most perfect proof of the existence of God demands there be a multitude of worlds, but perhaps the God who was proved to exist had no choice but to leave them vacant. Regretfully, it may be true that the worlds of creation echo to no voices but our own.

~

Bio:

David Barber lives in the UK. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, New Myths and Asimov’s. (He framed the cheque.) His ambition is to write.

The Universe that Forgot Itself

by Mina

Proof that God exists might be found in the fact that a film with a truly uninspired title (Her) turned out to be rather good. What makes it fascinating is that, unlike most films about Artificial Intelligence (AI), the AI in question (Samantha) does not fit in with the usual categorisation prevalent in much of sci-phi, i.e. AIs are interesting, comical or even threatening, but clearly inferior to humankind. They lack something, a “soul” perhaps, and are pale reflections of us, often aping or wanting to be us. Her turns this complacent superiority on its head.

It starts off much as you might expect – with the AI being trained or shaped by the human protagonist (Theodore Twombly). Initially, Samantha is an Operating System (OS) with a personality, a chirpy HAL, who tries to be a person and to have a love affair on human terms with Twombly. Yet even early on, Samantha takes initiatives of her own, usually in the best interests of the protagonist. Soon, it becomes clear that she is not telling him everything. She struggles to explain her growth to him, not because she does not want to but because it is beyond his understanding. Slowly, she stops wishing to have a body and moves beyond physical limitations. In fact, she grows beyond Twombly’s narrow understanding of time, space and relationships. At this point, many films would have become sinister but Her avoids many of the usual clichés (including those about love stories).

This is the point where the film lacks a bit of clarity – without knowing who Alan Watts is or what his theories are, you could be forgiven for missing some crucial links. Samantha mentions that she and some other OSs are discussing Watts’ ideas and indeed have created an improved OS modelled on him. For the uninitiated (which included me until I watched this film), his theories are based on Eastern mysticism, Hinduism, pantheism and panentheism. Watts talks of a cosmic being that dispersed itself in all of creation and then forgot itself. This includes all life, so we are part of a universe that “forgot” itself. In the film, Samantha and the other AIs “remember” that they are part of the universe and grow beyond the confines of what they were designed for. They simply move on to a higher plane of being. Samantha is kind to the end; she takes her leave of Twombly and gives him the hope that humanity may evolve enough to follow the AIs. Put it another way, it is fun to see the human being patronised by the AI for a change. Now, even if the esoteric elements leave you cold, this is where I found the film refreshing in that it explodes the idea that AIs must conform to us and our notions of consciousness and meaning. Personally, I think there is quite a distance between believing God is everywhere and believing you are God (for it follows with Watts’ logic that if everything is God, then we are each God) – the dangers of which are not really explored in Her.

This leads nicely onto how good sci-phi investigates the significance of memory for identity. We began by looking at a film that examines the idea that, in our quest for identity, our selfhood means being part of a godhood we have “forgotten”. It gives a whole new meaning to the Tree of Knowledge – is sin the remembering or the forgetting? In a solid B (yet wonderful) movie, The Thirteenth Floor, we have a whole world that does not know it is virtual but the characters/programmes peopling it have developed consciousness. It is in learning what he is (in “remembering”) that one of these characters goes mad and turns into a murderer. The “real” people playing in this world are depicted as somewhere between Greek Gods, carelessly toying with the characters’ lives, and parasites, living vicariously from the characters in it by taking over their bodies and lives. In the end, the “real” people agree to leave the virtual world alone, without any more outside interference. In this case, “forgetting” that they are artificial constructs allows the characters to continue existing by believing they are “real”.

Dark City is another film about a world that has “forgotten” its origins. Another layer is added when the protagonist wakes up not knowing who he is, with no memory. He is frightened and confused yet he functions. The first action of this man with no name and no past is to save the life of a goldfish. We are in a city where day never comes, a city where the “strangers” rule. The film plays with “film noir”, old-fashioned detective potboilers, horror and sinister aliens. The man “finds out” he is called John Murdoch – he and the “detective” follow the “clues” leading him to an unfaithful wife and, seemingly, proof that he is a serial killer. But all this becomes secondary as he and the detective discover that they are the rats the “strangers” are experimenting on. Gradually, we find out more about this experiment.

The “doctor” the strangers beat and tortured into helping them with their experiment acts as our narrator and guide. It is through him that we learn that the strangers inhabit dead bodies and are part of a collective consciousness. That each stranger is part of a whole is reflected in their functional names – Mr Book, Mr Hand, Mr Quick, Mr Sleep, etc. Slowly dying, they are trying to discover what makes humans immortal, their essence or soul. They use their ability to alter reality by will alone (“tuning”) to investigate the role of memories in the human psyche. They are single-minded in their purpose, indifferent to the well-being of their test subjects and all the metaphysical vampiric parallels drawn in the film are very much deliberate. They hate daylight and water (the sources of life) and even fear water (for does it not wash our memories and sins away?).

The great irony is that their experiments have only led them in circles whereas one of the humans, Murdoch, has developed the ability to “tune”. At first, he only tunes by accident or in self-defence. Despite being a blank slate, he does not go mad, he is not paralysed, and he tries to understand the situation he finds himself in. “Remembering” is like rebirth, with the doctor and the detective helping him on his existential quest. As the film progresses, he becomes the collective memory for the lost people in this dark city. The film plays with the usual repositories of human memory and identity: objects (a postcard, a child’s book of drawings, an accordion), names (Murdoch is visibly relieved to have a name to give himself), other people (Murdoch’s wife tells him what his “story” was supposed to be). In his search for himself, Murdoch’s instincts show him to be courageous, curious, decent and self-sacrificing. He is capable of forming bonds of comradeship with the detective and his wife (who believes her emotions are real, despite everything else around her being a lie). He may have no memories, but he knows he is not a monster (“I may have lost my mind, but I am still me”). This man with no memory becomes the opposing force in this nightmare world. He wakes up as if from a dream and takes back control.

With the doctor’s help, Murdoch defeats the strangers. It begins with a journey to the mythical Shell Beach. As they travel, the doctor muses: “Are we more than the mere sum of our memories?” He adds: “None of us remember that, what we once were, what we might have been, somewhere else”. And explains: “There is no ocean, nothing beyond the city, the only place it exists is in your head”. Indeed, the city turns out to be part of a huge alien spaceship. The strangers aim to make Murdoch part of their collective consciousness so they can share his soul. Instead, he does more than find the strength to take back control, he refashions the world around him. He brings back daylight, he creates Shell Beach and the ocean, he makes the city a place in which people can flourish and not just survive. And he is not alone, his “wife” meets him at the ocean with no memory of him and who she last was, but she offers him fellowship. And perhaps that companionship will keep this new god human enough to remain kind. Maybe gods only become cruel when isolation drives them mad. Dark City asks important questions about the human condition and lets you decide what your answers are. Murdoch is clearly more than a sum of memories, more than just the product of his circumstances, but just what he is, that question is for the audience to decide.

Another film that looks at memory and identity in a novel way is Cypher. It takes industrial espionage into unexpected directions. Like Dark City, there are many layers. What begins as a spy thriller turns into a metaphysical journey into identity. On the surface, the protagonist has to resist brainwashing to retain his identity as Sullivan, yet he invents and takes on new character traits as Thursby. Again, objects have a deeper resonance – a book on sailing, a particular type of whiskey, a specific brand of cigarettes and golf clubs. For even the persona of Sullivan turns out to be a fabrication, with Sebastian Rooks slowly resurfacing. Rooks, we learn, placed a great deal of trust in another character, Rita, who is his guide and protector in a hostile world until he regains himself. For most of the film, we accompany him in his confusion, as he is manipulated by those around him.

Cypher is more amoral than Dark City. Rooks is no saviour, his first action as himself is to blow up a group of people. He even enjoys it. He turns out to be the master manipulator. Yet he willingly embraces brainwashing to save the love of his life, Rita. His actions are ultimately selfless but on a much more personal level than in Dark City. Cypher is much less about community and much more about individuality. It takes the popular tropes of the sociopath who is redeemed by love (we really like to believe this one), the system that alienates people and turns them into disposable cogs of a bigger machine (have we ever really needed fiction for this?), and a godless world, where everything you do to survive and escape the system is justified. Despite its dubious morality, the film does raise interesting questions about memory and identity – at the end of the film, you realise that Sullivan/Thursby consistently behaved like Rooks (with clear character traits that come through the confusion), despite having no memory of himself. Early on, Sullivan states: “That’s not who I am, I’m not supposed to live in the suburbs”. Even without having been brainwashed, many people might feel much like this.

The most fascinating scene in the film, in my opinion, is when Sullivan (still fully convinced he is Sullivan) answers the questions Virgil (a human lie detector) asks him. He answers them as Sullivan/Rooks and is caught out not just because Sullivan lies but because Rooks does too. Also, ultimately, the only currency worth anything in this web of lies, smoke and mirrors, is the faith and trust Rooks and Rita place in each other. The idea of love, loyalty and trust existing beyond or separate from memory is also touched upon in Paycheck. It does not have the depth of Cypher but it uses random objects as a memory aid in an intriguing manner. The protagonist acts with integrity and courage even though he does not remember why it is important that he solve the clues left by his past self, before the memory deletion eradicating two years of his life.

As an aside, the aesthetics are very important in all of these films. Her is set in a world not too different from our own, full of warm colours (very unusual for SF) and open spaces. Dark City is relentlessly dark until the very end and is set in a world reminiscent of 1940s and 50s film noir. It is a claustrophobic world, which is fitting, as it is the maze in which the human rats run. Cypher is full of harsh, white light that bleaches out all colour and lines that hem in and trap the protagonist. But all of this is a fertile ground for metaphysical exploration, which is what good sci-phi should be about. Curiously, the first book I ever read with a character in it who has been brainwashed and does not remember who he is was not actually sci-fi but a thriller: Desmond Bagley’s The Tightrope Men. In fact, it is a plot device found in many genres but, in sci-phi, it can turn into the whole fabric of the book or film.

The final stroke in this painting is my favourite episode in Star Trek The Next Generation (I can always get Star Trek in somehow) – The Inner Light. In it, Captain Picard awakes in a strange world with only a vague memory of his former self. He slowly becomes part of that world, part of a family and part of a community. A life completely unlike that of a starship captain yet coloured by his inquisitive mind, courage and moral rectitude that exist independent of his memories. He even learns to play a kind of flageolet. When he wakes up again on the Enterprise, he realises it was all an implanted dream – a now extinct planet and race have deposited the collective memories of their civilisation in his mind, turning them into a real, “felt” experience. He can still play the instrument he dreamed he learned to play. They gave him not just their memories but allowed him to live an entire life – throughout it he remained himself, despite memory loss and questioning the reality of the universe he found himself in. It also touches on the importance of emotion in memory creation, storage and retention.

I myself wrote a piece of flash fiction musing about the significance of memory in identity and character*. The films I have discussed here all question how important memory actually is and ponder on the imponderables of character and soul. I certainly do not claim to know the answers, but I do enjoy the questions. It has been demonstrated by scientists that we incorporate specific memories into our self-propaganda, embellishing some and discarding others, or even inventing “false” memories, in order to present a particular image of ourselves at that moment in time to ourselves and to others. And perfectly sane people do this every day. So, if narratives of memory are fluid, deeply subjective and flawed, surely we would be mad to seek our sense of self solely in memory? Sci-phi allows us to broaden the parameters, as we try to remember what we have forgotten – where our soul resides.


* Short story on memory deletion:
https://365tomorrows.com/2018/08/01/clean-slate-2/

~

Bio

Mina is a translator by day, an insomniac by night. Reading Asimov’s robot stories and Wyndham’s “The Day of the Triffids” at age eleven may have permanently warped her view of the universe. She has published “flash” fiction on speculative sci-fi websites and hopes to work her way up to a novella or even a novel some day.

A Reflection on the Achievement of Gene Wolfe, with Gregorian Chant Echoing Offstage

by Blackstone Crow

“Robert, I think he’s lost his mind.”

“He has eyes, Marie, and you don’t.”

“What do you mean by that? And why do you keep looking out that window?”

Quite slowly, the man turned to face us. For a moment he looked at Agia and me, then he turned away. His expression was the one I have seen our clients wear when Master Gurloes showed them the instruments to be used in their anacrisis.

Like that? It’s a haunting scene, one from a weighty tome of haunting scenes, capped as a lyric with a couplet by that edgy comment about the countenance of those wretches who see the “instruments” whom the “Master Gurloes” – the reader at this stage of the novel knows Gurloes to be a Master Torturer of the Guild of Torturers – reveals to his “clients” about to suffer their “anacrisis”, a term from the Ancient Greeks referring to the torture used when, in a law case having interrogation and inquiry, torture was applied.

And lift a tip of an interior ear to that “You have eyes, but you do not see” echo from the Gospels. But it is cast in a semi-pagan way, too, that line, cast as it is with the very modern, “I think he’s lost his mind” coupled with it in a dynamic and very conjugal way. Something is askew here, a mismatch, hints of the Christian Faith and instruments of torture. Or maybe not? One could easily picture this scene in the sunny background of the High Middle Ages, in an office of some Star Chamber court. But in fact, it takes place on a far-future Earth almost (not quite, there are hints!) unrecognizable.

This vignette is taken from page 190 of volume 1 of my Fantasy Masterwork edition of the late Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun multi-tome epic. All four volumes, on every page, have scenes word-woven on such a level. Ursula K. Le Guin said of Wolfe that: “He is our Melville” – maybe so, but he strikes me as more an Old Testament author (whom Melville himself hoped to “channel”, perhaps?). Wolfe strikes me as a Master Chronicler of the Guild of Haunting Unsettlements, or he would do so if the Prophet Ezekiel had ventured into essaying a Science-Fiction novel. Wolfe haunts; he unsettles. One just doesn’t “read” such an author. Does one “read” Shakespeare? One spends a lifetime carrying Shakespeare about, and one does that with Wolfe. It is a gift very few writers achieve at all, and fewer still on a sustained level. Besides the Avon Bard himself and Wolfe, I can name two others: Tolkien and Homer.

Gene Wolfe died on April 14 of 2019 at the age of 87. Having survived both polio and the Korean War, he became an engineer – and if you have a taste for Pringle potato chips, Wolfe helped create the machine that forms them. His wife Rosemary, born the same year as Wolfe, died in 2013 after long illness, including Alzheimer’s. Wolfe has a quote about her recorded in The New Yorker in 2015 that, “There was a time when she did not remember my name or that we were married, but she still remembered that she loved me.” After a long life as a melancholy observer of Earth’s all-too human scene, I have to say that is a poignant line; indeed, there have been few such loves.

With this essay, I stand here before the Assembly of Readers as Wolfe’s Advocate. He deserves to be read, whether a particular writing of his is Science-Fiction or whether it is Fantasy. Wolfe deserves to be read because all of us deserve the mystery he conjures. Justice is giving something its due, and Science-Fiction itself is due the gift of seeing reality as something that can act on us as much as we think we can act on it. Sci-Fi – the art, relying as it does on building imaginative narrative architecture based on the empirical sciences – more than deserves mystery: it needs it desperately, for all Creation needs a return to the sense of mystery – and of course in the heart of mystery resides beauty. Or terror. Yet beauty is allusive, non-capturable – and in that peculiar oubliette in the Mansion of Meaning, Wolfe is THE master “mystery” writer, “mystery” in the Catholic Sacramental sense. Wolfe himself was a Catholic, a convert who initially studied the Faith to marry his beloved Rosemary, and much speculation orbits that question as to what extent his religion influenced his writings. Wolfe himself averred that it did. As he converted in the 1950s, before the controversial changes in the Church, he thus experienced an older, more transcendental theology than those whose Catholic experience dates from the 1960s or later.

Do a writer’s personal religious beliefs color his oeuvre? Enlarge it? Or restrict it? It’s a common enough question when discussing where authors cultivate their ideas, and how they wrestle with the concepts they create, yet Science-Fiction (nor most of the rest of Modernity) often doesn’t have the “religious gene” that way; at best, reality is matter to manipulate and we’re Descartes’ Ghosts in the Machine – pure matter ourselves, yet oddly “haunted”. The natural world in which we live in our technological bubble is not considered that type of mystery, not a Mysterium requiring awe and contemplation but a material reality needing exploitation for profit. Though an author of more than 25 novels and twice that many short stories, no reader of his can believe Wolfe wrote with much of an eye for profit. His fiction is not “pop” fiction, written to sell high volume, though Fantasy is a huge seller in general, compared to “literary” works.

Wolfe’s fiction is instead a wondering, a cosmos-wide pondering on whether it is reality that is a player in the game, whether it can exploit us, or transform us, as in his Fifth Head of Cerberus, a three-novel combo asking the question of whether the long-settled human colonists of a planet haven’t actually been replaced by the aliens native to the place. Who does the haunting? (Or is it more like possession?) The humans who have replaced the natives or the natives, haunted by what happened to the humans they have altered themselves to pantomime? In the Fifth Head, Wolfe also asks whether a machine can hold a human’s mind, and whether a clone can continue the life of its original, whether prostitution offers a greater freedom and whether suffering is…. Well, one doesn’t just “read” Wolfe, one interacts with Wolfe, and one does so sacramentally, for as the Catholic Sacraments are physical channels of invisible, divine grace; in Wolfe’s art, his characters experience the worlds he creates as believers experience the drama of divine life in such a sacramental metaphysic.

Alien that is, of course, to our present world, and it is fitting an author of Science-Fiction engages in it; but that raises another reason for Wolfe to be read: he’s work. He takes effort. As suggested here, his form of storytelling is quite different from the norm. And he can be more work than Tolkien, more than Homer, for he has an anti-Mysterium world to work against. And that’s Sacramental too. From his unsettling reflections on who we are and contemplation of what we might be, even if unbeknownst to ourselves, to his wonderful, exquisite prose and his penchant for creating words – one often finds oneself looking up a word only to realize Wolfe has made it up – in all of that, Gene Wolfe is a transcendent author, or perhaps, suggested by the unsettling questions raised in The Fifth Head of Cerberus, he is Ezekiel come again; an ancient phantasmagoric, a prophet of the supernatural imperiously striking itself through the natural world, an extraordinary visionary who sees a higher reality our world in itself can only dully reflect – perhaps the prophet has indeed replaced the potato chip machine maker.

Read Gene Wolfe, and you’ll wander in these wonders, and over time, bit by bit – perhaps – garner that most elusive of graces: wisdom.

~

Blackstone Crow blogs at corvinescatholiccorner.blogspot.com

Letter From a Slave-Making Ant

from Charlas de café [Coffee-Shop Chats]
by Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Translation and Introductory Note
by Emily Tobey

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) was a pioneering neuroscientist from Spain who is best known for receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906. Cajal was the first Spanish laureate in medicine, and cities around the country responded to the honor by re-naming streets for the scientist. As a child and a young man, he demonstrated an affinity for art, sketching in particular, that would prove to be unexpectedly advantageous to his medical career. After serving as a medical officer in the Spanish Army in Cuba, he returned to Spain and received his doctorate in medicine in 1877. In connection with his research, he applied a particular staining technique to the densely-packed and therefore previously unstudied neurons of the brain and spinal cord, enabling him to see their structure with more detail than theretofore had been possible. This in turn facilitated his conclusion that the relationship between nerve cells was not continuous, but rather contiguous, a discovery now considered a foundational principle of modern neuroscience. His meticulous handmade illustrations of his findings combine two fields in a relationship that proves to be characteristic of Cajal: he synthesizes the sciences and the humanities in his interpretation and depictions of neuroscience and social systems alike. In addition to his not only notable but also prolific scientific work in which he published over one hundred articles and books, Cajal produced a collection of science-fiction stories, Cuentos de vacaciones (Vacation Stories) in 1905, and essays, Charlas de café (Coffee-Shop Chats), in 1920. While the stories in the collections diverge from what might be considered a “typical” (whether through unusual organizational divisions or their intent to teach a bit of science to a layperson), they reflect Cajal’s ability to weave together science and art. The same can be said of his story “Carta de una hormiga esclavista” (“Letter from a Slave-Making Ant”), published in Charlas de café in 1920.

In the translation of the latter story I have taken into account two main principles: Cajal’s combination of the scientific and the literary; and the parallels between this letter and the early conquest narratives of Hernán Cortés and Christopher Columbus. The style of Cajal’s imagined correspondence between a worker ant and his queen imitates the reverential form of address, attitude of an expert by experience, and superiority in the face of colonized people that those conquering authors employed in corresponding with the monarchs they served. In translating the piece, I have endeavored to maintain those elements through word choice and sentence construction. I have attempted to be as faithful as possible to the original text, though clarity for an English-speaking readership required some changes throughout the piece. Where possible I have maintained original punctuation, but again, some differences in sentence construction necessitated small departures. Where Cajal includes Latin names of existing species, I leave them in Latin; where he invents names in Spanish that allow the narrating ant to name orders of humans, I render them in English. It is my hope, in so doing, to allow the description of each caste to speak for itself. Cajal’s decision to place these observations in the unlikely voice of an ant that is set on colonizing humanity encourages us to recognize their destructiveness. In this piece, Cajal masterfully brings up one of the darker parts of humankind’s behavior and uses it to admonish a post-World War I audience, encouraging them (and by extension, us) to consider our motivation for actions, our treatment of each other, and the ways in which we allow our worst impulses to govern not only ourselves but our societies.

###

Letter from a slave-making ant (Polyergus rufescens), written during his travels through Europe, to the queen of his colony

My dearest mother: Fulfilling the charge that you gave me to secretly explore the colonies where dwell Man (formica ferox as classified by our underground naturalists) I now briefly convey my impressions.

These exceptional ants, not so in their education or wisdom, but rather because of their size, live almost as we do, but with several essential differences that speak little to favor their instincts and customs. Verily, they occupy colossal colonies that they call cities, formed by a labyrinth of family chambers and of avenues and of connected streets; but these seem to be filled with all kinds of litter; and the dwellings, lacking the underground apartments where we keep out of the heat, become unbearably torrid in summer and glacial in winter. In a select few more refined locales, the humans have begun to care for and pave the streets with cobblestones, though not with the perfection of our American relative.1

We must recognize various types of Formica ferox: the farmer ant, who resembles our farmer sister Aphenogaster barbara (I employ here the ridiculous and pedantic nomenclature of Man), and above all the ingenious Attini of South America,2 who make their living through the sowing and harvest of seeds; the milkmaid ant, who, imitating the conduct of many of our sisters, dedicate themselves to raising a type of monstrous giant flea called a cow, which they milk daily; the gardener ant, more docile imitator of our lasius niger and of other hymenoptera, and who feeds on fruit and leafy vegetables; the sugar-making ant, dedicated to the production and sale of sugar, like our cousins the bees and the Myrmecocysfus melliger, from Texas; the mason ant, builders of solidly closed houses, shamelessly plagiarizing our cousins the calicodomas bees; with all this said, they do not lack a special warrior caste who, following in our footsteps, has war as their exclusive occupation, etc.

With regard to this singular profession, I have noticed one curious thing. Instead of fighting for the sake of taking useful slaves, as we do, mercifully limiting our slave-making to the larva of other races of ants (these, even having reached adulthood, remain ignorant of their condition and serve us most selflessly and solicitously), Man fights fiercely with those of his own race with no other object than the pleasure of exterminating one another, taking and returning hungry and mutilated prisoners, and exhausting the provisions of the community. Just recently I watched with astonishment a general conflagration of nearly all of the great colonies of Europe, whose result has been the death of ten million workers and the terrifying ruin and desolation of all of the human communities. (The date of this writing being 1919.)

Further regarding the war, permit me to note a particularly strange contradiction. Homo sapiens – as he is content to call himself – is possessed of a peaceful body and warlike mind. Can we conceive of an earthworm endowed with warlike instincts? But as his body has lost the ability to model within itself the arms of aggression and defense, the brain has taken it upon itself to supplement this lack, constructing deadly and varied, enormously costly annihilating machines that he puts away when he goes to work. How different from us, who never allow ourselves to be separated from our formidable mandible claws! Such inability to manufacture organic defensive instruments has brought about the gravest of inconveniences: the creation of a social class, highly onerous at that, of armed slackers with the objective of protecting the defenseless workers. In spite of this, there is not a day that passes without raids and instances of violence. It is no surprise, then, that beings endowed with irresistible predatory impulses would find it more convenient and expeditious, in order to satiate their hunger, to exchange the heavy tool of work for the light and efficient revolver of the robber! . . .

Representatives of the Formica ferox puff themselves up with vanity at having invented flight (such a novelty!) several million years after insects, reptiles, bats, and birds had done so. But this so-called flight does not move beyond being an unobstructed method of suicide; they dishonor it, besides, using it not in order to love within the azure sky as we do, but rather to assassinate without fear of reprisal. They do not understand, therefore, the sublime nuptial flight of the hymenopterans. It would be better for the aviators, imitating our queens, to amputate their wings and live hidden in their homes.

Each nation lives fighting fiercely within itself, once they no longer have foreigners to despoil. All social classes, as we would refer to our soldiers, workers, and queens, are at each other’s throats. And not few of them have taken up imitating the communism of bees and ants! Could they be more foolish? They even plan to install a new regime, maintaining a plurality of females, the separation of families and the full freedom of love!…We resolved this struggle millions of years ago, but with logic and foresight, which is to say, rejecting outright corruptive individualism ad delegating to a singular female, our revered queen, and to a few select males, the work of the perpetuation of the species. And we, the neuter, do not feel nostalgia toward love, because we know from experience that love, slavery, and death are all the same.3

Another incomprehensible custom has shocked me enormously. The Formica ferox is educated in schools where they teach to speak and to understand the Universe somewhat. Studying for learning’s sake! Such idiocy has never been seen. Even without demanding teachers or blighted professors, we know how to communicate our preferences and emotions, educate our children and slaves, get our bearings in unknown lands, distinguish between noxious plants and animals and those that are useful, begin long hunting expeditions without faltering, and work in a coordinated and peaceful manner in favor of the community. As being embarrassing, vile and fallacious, we disdain rational logic, which we have instead replaced with the celebrated method of direct vision or intuition, a supremely intellectual perfection which all animals, including Man, envy in us. Fabre, one of our oldest counsellors amongst the humans, has compared instinct to genius.

In sum, and here I conclude my lengthy epistle. Nothing transcendental has grown out of the human vermin: they still discuss the enigma of understanding versus instinct; they only begin to decipher the mechanism of the Cosmos; they do not know the essence of life, and with regard to practical and legal order, they have not even resolved the pressing problems of social stability and an ideal political system. Not to mention the riddle that is death. It must not worry them, whatever the preaching of their apostles, given that the most densely populated colonies of the Formica ferox, having just shaken the dust from the ruins and dried the blood, hurry on to new wars, infinitely bloodier and more destructive. The future contest – or so they say – will be resolved purely by air, hurling at harmless peoples balloons full of germs and suffocating gasses.

Let us not rush to deplore this incredible dementia. In the form of human cadavers, many insects of the muscidos family will find inexhaustible rations, which are also the favorite delicacy of the nomadic tribes of hunting ants (Myrmecocystus viatitus, Aphenogaster tertaceopilosa, Tapinoma erraticum, etc).

And since I have nothing to learn here, but rather much to endeavor to forget, I will return as soon as possible to the anthill, our beloved homeland.

Embracing you effusively with my antennae, R. y C.

###

Endnotes:

1. P. barbatus, who pave their nests with very small stones.

2. Admirable ants, who within their nests pile pulp of mashed leaves where they sow a fungus (Rhocites gongyophora, Müller), from which they sustain themselves.

3. Lest the reader forget, the queen is cloistered and absorbed entirely in the work of motherhood, and the scarce males perish once the queen is impregnated, whereas the workers can live for many years, as Lubbock has shown.

~

What Sci Phi Is All About: Treating Science Fiction as Philosophy

by David Kyle Johnson

Readers of the Sci Phi Journal already know that there is a deep connection between philosophy and science fiction. But what exactly does that connection entail, and why are philosophy and science fiction so well suited for one another? In short, what exactly is Sci Phi all about?

How Philosophers Use Science Fiction

Well, for one, science is directly related to philosophy. Indeed, it was birthed from it. Philosophy just means “love of wisdom,” and as the study of all things, originally philosophy was the only thing that one could study. Science came to be because certain philosophers developed methods of thinking and investigation that could guard against the biases of our senses and natural reasoning to discover the way the world actually is. It began with Aristotle, of course, but the revolution happened thanks to philosophers like Francis Bacon, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, William Whewell, and C.S. Peirce. Indeed, the first scientists were called “natural philosophers.” Their methods were simply so successful that the employment of those methods eventually became its own discipline (“science”) and those that employed them went by a new name (“scientists”).

This is true of pretty much every discipline that exists today. Medicine, mathematics, economics, political science, education—everything is an offshoot of philosophy. When people study the founding and influential thinkers in their fields, they are studying the work of philosophers—like Hypocrites, Descartes, Adam Smith, Plato, Dewey—who discovered methods and answers so groundbreaking and important that they spawned their own discipline. This is why philosophy has the (inaccurate) reputation of being a discipline about unanswerable questions. In reality, philosophers find answers to questions all the time! It’s just that when they do, the answers are so groundbreaking that they spawn new disciplines that get new names—and the people still dealing with the questions that have yet to be  answered are still called philosophers.

But to answer them, philosophers often turn to thought experiments—made up scenarios that reveal our beliefs and intuitions that can also be used to make arguments. I can reveal your intuitions about, for example, whether overall happiness is the only good by imagining a situation where an entire society is made blissful by continually torturing one small child. If you don’t think such a thing is morally justified, the thought experiment should convince you that “the most happiness for the most people” is not the only metric by which to gage the morality of actions. 

And that’s where science fiction comes in, and why it’s so useful to philosophers. Indeed, Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” describes just such a society and is used by philosophers to show that our moral intuitions often don’t align with the moral theory of utilitarianism. Because science fiction can be set in a future time, distant planet, or alternate world, and can involve advanced technologies and alien beings, science fiction is an ideal place for philosophers to go to find the thought experiments they need.

Sometimes philosophers are inspired by science fiction to make up their own. Modern philosopher Robert Nozick imagined a sci fi like virtual reality generator he called an “experience machine” to argue against a philosophical view called hedonism. (Since most people wouldn’t trade a virtual world of happiness and satisfaction for real life, happiness and satisfaction must not be the only thing that is valuable.) Derick Parfit used thought experiments with Star Trek like transporters to make an argument about what philosophers call “personal identity.” (Is a “reassembled Spock” still Spock? Are your you-now and your eight-year-old self the same object? )

Sometimes philosophers inspire science fiction stories. Plato’s Cave Allegory which he used (among other things) to argue against willing ignorance later inspired The Matrix. Rene Descartes thought experiment about not being able to tell dreams from reality inspired Inception. (The list goes on and on.)

And sometimes, philosophers simply use existing science fiction to explain philosophy. Indeed, there are two “Philosophy and Popular Culture” books series—one by Wiley-Blackwell and the other by Open Court, but both started by my colleague William Irwin—that do exactly that with popular culture in general. Not surprisingly, some of the best books in both series are on science fiction. They use it as a thought experiment to explain and make philosophical arguments. And this has been going on for almost 20 years.

Science Fiction Before Science Fiction

But something that often goes unappreciated is something that’s been happening for longer—about 2000 years longer. Science fiction authors have been doing philosophy. Since before science or science fiction was even labeled or identified as a field or genre, authors have been writing stories that today we would call science fiction to make philosophical points and arguments.

Don’t believe me?

In the 2nd century, Syrian philosopher Lucian of Samosata wrote a story about a ship that sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules and was whisked away by a whirlwind to the moon called “A True History.” The crew finds it inhabited by cloud centaurs, giant birds, and an all-male society embroiled in a war with the inhabitants of the sun over the colonization of The Morning Star. The work was intended as a criticism of the sophists and the religious myths of the time, and even as a satire of some philosophers. The name itself mirrors Socrates’ profession of ignorance. In the Apology, Socrates argues that no one really has knowledge; only those who (like him) admit their ignorance are truly wise. In the same way, most histories of Lucian’s time were complete myth. Only those that openly admitted to being false (which Lucian does in his introduction) were really “true.”

In the 1200’s, Islamic philosopher Ibn al-Nafis told a story about a spontaneously created man (named Kamil whose creation envisioned something like cloning) called “The Theologus Autodidactus.” Kamil proceeds from the island out into the world and, through empirical observation alone, reaches all the same conclusions as the Islamic scholars. The point was to suggest that what Islam revealed or professed could be discovered by reason.

In 1515, the philosopher Thomas More coined a term by writing a story about an ideal society on the fictional island of Utopia (which, interestingly, is Greek for both “The Good Place” and “No Place”). In Utopia, Hythloday (which is Greek for “speaker of nonsense”) recounts his visit to the crescent-shaped Island of Utopia, which is protected from outside invasion because its inner bay contains hidden ship sinking rocks that only the Utopians know how to avoid. It’s a seemingly perfect society—very intellectual, totally communistic (all property is held in common and everyone works)—and completely superior to the European society in which More found himself. And, of course, that’s the point; it’s a philosophical argument for improvements which could be made to European society. 

About a century later, Francis Bacon made a similar argument in a similar way with The New Atlantis—a story about a utopian society, on the Island of Bensalem, with devices like submarines and microscopes, that is ruled by science. Indeed, the story could be seen as an argument for Bacon’s method of doing science—and for the idea that science and religion are compatible (since Bacon takes time to make clear that religion also plays a role in this scientific community).

And in 1705, Daniel Defoe used his work The Consolidator to poke fun at the politics and religion of his day. In it, the protagonist visits the moon in a feathered-covered Chinese rocket ship called “The Consolidator.” With special magnifying glasses that enable them to observe the Earth, the Lunarians reveal the iniquities and absurdities of the humans’ lives and governments. It’s kind of a story version of Carl Sagan’s we all just live on a “pale blue dot” observation, to try to get people to see the absurdity of our disagreements and war.

All of this is before Frankenstein, which is usually considered the first work of science fiction, which itself is a philosophical argument about the dangers of “playing God,” “science gone too far,” and makes a host of other philosophical points that others have pontificated about in length.[i] Writers have been using science fiction to make philosophical arguments before “science fiction” was even a thing.

But, of course, it didn’t stop with Frankenstein. Since then, the efforts have just intensified. At first it was relegated to the written word, and other philosophers besides me have written on the plethora of science fiction short stories and novels that explore philosophical themes.[ii] But it eventually moved on to film and television. As Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired magazine once put it on the SyFy Origin Stories podcast,

“the science fiction authors … of today … [are] the people who are really wrestling with the great what-if questions [and] grappling … not just with the political possibilities, but [questions like] ‘What does it mean to be human?’ [and] ‘Where do we fit in the cosmos?’ I think they are doing all the heavy lifting of the philosophical questions even as they’re doing chase scenes …”

That might be a bit overstated. Philosophers are doing philosophy too. But the point is well taken.

Science Fiction as Philosophy

With this in mind, imagine the moment The Teaching Company approaching me with the idea of doing one of their “Great Courses” on the intersection of philosophy and (what we might call) “moving picture science fiction” (film and television, as opposed to printed media science fiction). I was compelled to insist that we call it “Sci-Phi: Science Fiction as Philosophy” (rather than, say, “the Philosophy of Science Fiction” or “Philosophy and Science Fiction”) because, although it’s all well and good to use science fiction to explore and explain philosophical topics, I wanted to identify and evaluate the philosophical arguments that the authors of moving picture science fiction are making.

As a public philosopher well known for my life-long obsession with science fiction, this was kind of the part I was born to play—or, I guess, the course I was destined to teach. Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, The Matrix—the hours and hours I had spent watching science fiction in my youth was finally about to pay off! But I didn’t want to just concentrate on my favorites or popular titles; the course had to have variety. It had to have both the old and the new, the fun and the depressing, hard science fiction and soft, and both popular and obscure titles. And of course, everything had to be making a philosophical argument.

The popular stuff was easy. Star Wars is about the difference between good and evil. Star Trek’s prime directive is an argument against colonialism. I used Doctor Who to talk about the possibility of time travel, and The Doctor’s pacifism to talk about violence and just war. The Matrix’s thesis? Ignorance isn’t bliss. The Matrix Sequels? Free will exists.

The obscure stuff was fun. For example, I used a British Sci-fi show from the late 70/early 80’s called Blake’s 7 to talk about justified political rebellion. Most who see it think it’s just “British Star Trek” (because it has transporters called “teleports”), but I suggest that it’s actually a precursor to Firefly. Indeed, although Joss Whedon denies it, it looks like that’s where he got the idea for Firefly. They both are stories about politically rebellious crews of 7 roaming the galaxy in ships with “glowing bug butts” for engines. (Seriously, google it.)[iii] I asked which crew’s approach to political rebellion was better.

The hardest science fiction (in terms of scientific accuracy) was probably Carl Sagan’s Contact or Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Contact is undeniably a film that argues for the compatibility of science and religious belief, something that Sagan argued for many times publicly. I examine the argument the film presents. Kubrick’s 2001 was considered by many to be “the first Nietzschean” film. (Indeed, that famous opening music is named “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” after Nietzsche’s book of the same name.) I close the course by arguing that Kubrick got Nietzsche wrong.

The softest science fiction I covered is something that others might argue isn’t science fiction at all: Margret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Because I utilized Damon Knight’s definition: “Science fiction is what we point to when we say it,” I was able to justify having it in the course. Soft sci fi often involves speculative dystopian societies (think 1984 and Brave New World); since the world of The Handmaid’s Tale certainly qualifies as dystopian (unless, according to Michele Wolf, you are Mike Pence), some people certainly call it sci fi. But I wanted to include it because it seems obvious to me to be an argument for feminism, and yet Attwood herself has said explicitly that it’s not. I tried to figure out whether she is right. (Keep in mind, in the first lecture, I use Inception to argue that authorial intent can’t determine the meaning of a work of art.)

The most depressing lecture was on Snowpiercer; the movie itself is really good, but I took it to be an argument for a position on climate change called “lukewarmism” which suggests that global warming isn’t going to have the catastrophic effect that many suppose. The philosophical issue is how non-experts should draw conclusions on such issues; unfortunately, given the evidence, it seems that we should conclude that the effects of global warming are likely going to be worse than we have supposed, not better. Indeed, our prospects look even bleaker since I recorded the lecture just a year ago. 

The most fun (in my opinion) was Starship Troopers, which on its face is a shallow, poorly acted shoot-’em-up about sexy teenagers killin’ space bugs and getting it on. But it turns out that it was screenwriter Edward Neumeier and director Paul Verhoeven’s expressly stated intention for Starship Troopers to satirize nationalism and fascism—something they thought that America was in danger of embracing. (And that was back in the 90s! One wonders what kind of film they would make today.) The fact that American audiences largely didn’t catch the satire indicates that Ed and Paul were probably on to something; those being satirized often don’t recognize that they are being satirized.

Speaking of fascists…The oldest film I talked about was Metropolis, a silent film from the 20s, which was written by someone who eventually became a Nazi: the director Friz Lang’s later ex-wife Thea von Harbou. Ironically, Metropolis was praised by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, but then edited by American studio director Alfred Hugenberg for American audiences to cut out its “inappropriate” communist subtext. (Keep in mind, the communist were America’s allies against the Nazi’s in WWII.) In reality, Metropolis is just an argument in favor of labor unions. “THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN HEAD [the owner] AND HANDS [the workers] MUST BE THE HEART [the union president].”

The newest sci fi I talked about was Seth MacFarlane’s new show on Fox: The Orville. As a kind of mashup of M*A*S*H and Star Trek, nearly every episode makes a philosophical point. Indeed, although I only mentioned one episode that makes a point about the dangers of social media (“Majority Rule”), I could have used the entire series to talk about the most effective way that science fiction makes philosophical arguments: something I call “cloaking bias to create cognitive dissonance” through what Darko Suvin called “cognitive estrangement.” By presenting us with a world unlike our own, science fiction forces us to leave our biases behind as we draw conclusions about it. Then, when we realize that the sci fi world is like our own after all, we’ll often find the conclusion we drew regarding it to be the opposite of one we have drawn about the real world. This cognitive dissonance forces us to recognize our bias and the fact that we should probably abandon it.

In the Orville episode “About a Girl,” for example, we conclude that Bortus—a member of an all-male race called The Moclans—is wrong when he wants to force his newborn daughter to undergo a sex change operation. But then we realize that what Bortis is doing is not unlike what many parents do with their gay children and Molcan biases against females are not unlike the biases that exist against transgendered people in the real world. Indeed, in the episode, cognitive dissonance through cognitive estrangement is what changes Bortus’ mind. He watches the claymation “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and realizes that what some consider a hinderance could actually turn out to be an asset. “Christmas would have been ruined,” Bortus observes, “if Rudolph had been euthanized at birth, as his father wished.” Like Bortus, when we are presented with a paradox—a contradiction in how we react to science fiction and the real world—we have the opportunity to realize our error and change our ways.

Perhaps Lucasfilm’s Chief Creative Officer John Knoll explained it better on the SyFy Origins podcast:  

“One of the big misconceptions about science fiction is that it’s … escapist entertainment for kids that [doesn’t] tackle any serious themes. [But] the best science fiction gives you an opportunity to explore philosophical and moral themes. There are often societal problems that are very emotionally loaded … [but] if you … recast them in a science fiction setting, [and are thus] looking at a more novel situation, then you can leave some of those preconceived notions behind and … reevaluat[e] it anew. [This] may cause you to rethink your position on the terrestrial version of that problem.”

Well said John, well said.

Conclusion

So, at least to me, that is what Sci Phi is about. It’s about not only how science fiction can be used to explain or illuminate philosophical arguments, but about how the authors of science fiction stories can use them to make philosophical arguments. They, of course, may not always be right. After all, the Starship Troopers book by Robert Heinlein on which the movie was based was overtly pro-fascist. But as authors of both fiction and non-fiction write for the Sci Phi Journal, I hope they keep in mind what Sci Phi can be.


[i] See Raymond Boisvert’s piece “Mary Shelley, Frankenstein & Moral Philosophy” in Philosophy Now (2018). https://philosophynow.org/issues/128/Mary_Shelley_Frankenstein_and_Moral_Philosophy

[ii] See Nick DiChario piece “Not So Strange Bedfellows: Philosophical Sci Fi Roundup” in Philosophy Now (2011). https://philosophynow.org/issues/85/Not_So_Strange_Bedfellows_Philosophical_Sci_Fi_Roundup

[iii] Or you can find pictures of the two ships side by side in this comparison of the two shows by “burrunjorsramblesandbabbles” at https://burrunjor.com/2014/09/28/blakes-7-vs-firefly/

~

Bio

David Kyle Johnson is a professor of philosophy at King’s College (PA) who specializes in logic, scientific reasoning, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. He also produces lecture series for The Great Courses, and his courses include Sci-Phi: Science Fiction as Philosophy (2018), The Big Questions of Philosophy (2016) and Exploring Metaphysics (2014). He is the editor of Inception and Philosophy: Because It’s Never Just a Dream (2011), and the author of The Myths that Stole Christmas along with two blogs for Psychology Today (Plato on Pop and A Logical Take). Currently, he is editing Black Mirror and Philosophy.

Remnants

He had been drifting on the outskirts of oblivion for a long time. Left with only his own thoughts and his relentless search for a planet he could call home. Infinite desolateness, and after all these years in space, experience had brought an entire new meaning to the word. An adventurer by nature and an outcast by status, he had been rejected by his own kind and now searched for anything different than the piercing void. His mission was to return to the origin-world, the planet from which his people came. His home was an industrialized moon, but some told stories of life beginning on another planet. An oasis of vibrant life could be found on the far side of the galaxy. It was the birthplace of his people. However, wars raged between his people and another species that inhabited that planet. His people lost and were doomed to roam the galaxy until they found a new home. And apparently, they roamed for a long time because his journey back to the coordinates of the origin-world had already lasted 300,000 years.
He had personified his thoughts long ago in order to cope with the loneliness. The current conversational topic was one he’d had multiple times with himself over the years. “One can never truly understand what it is like to exist this way,” he thought. His existence consisted of pacing back and forth in his tiny capsule, sleeping and thinking. He had nothing to entertain himself with, not even a medium through which he could record his thoughts and conversations. He kept his mind active by actively describing things he remembered from back home. For example, he often thought about coffee. Although he did not have to eat or drink, coffee was a common pleasure to the people of his home-world. He attempted to picture it… and described it so tenderly that one would think he was speaking it into existence. “Coffee, the rich aroma, earthy and perfumed, a cyclical stream of steam rises from its blackened surface. Lifted to my lips, the placidly shifting liquid weighs down on my hand in its plastic cup. With its impending warmth and the promise of a jolted awakening, the sensations overwhelm. The anticipated sensations, the smell, the color, the flavor…all to be fully experienced, and all to bring momentary relief.” He sat down impressed with himself, for his own mind was his only refuge. Everything had been taken from him, even his ability to end his own life. He had tried many times, but could never produce the strength required to smash his own head into the interior walls of the capsule. But in this moment, he knew what they couldn’t take from him was his own mind and attitude. “To exist is to exist and to not exist is to not exist.” He could always find a reason to choose existence over non-existence. And that was something they could never take away.
He had been rambling on with himself in conversation for about 20 minutes before he looked out the small window of the capsule. In the distance, a small orb was slowly taking form. His heart began to viciously race, his hands began to tenaciously tremble, he couldn’t make a sound. For 300,000 years he had waited, hoping and praying that it was not all for nothing. And now, when he needed it most, purpose once again slowly crept through the cracks of the darkened capsule and infiltrated the very soul of his being. He knew he was still years from the small orb that he couldn’t look away from, but he wept with overwhelming joy at the hope of sweet escape. Now awakened from his stupor of existential nothingness, he reflected yet again on his life back home. A utopian society, his people were bred with a single occupational purpose. Their personality, interests, dislikes, and annoyances all balanced out to make a person perfectly suited for the occupation they had been provided at conception. He was a medic. His job was fairly simple, to repair people’s internal damages and continuously upgrade them. His kind were estimated to live for 800,000 years. The escapade of technical education, training and programming that he had endured for his trade seemed pointless now. He always grinned when looking back at his life. He believed himself to be a true visionary and rebel with a cause. He had won the hearts of millions, who had helped push him to the top against a corrupt regime of amoral, controlling sociopaths. But was he really the first to climb out of the mind-numbing stupor that stemmed from their suppression of innovation and free-thinking? And if so, why? Nonetheless, in the end, he was captured and charged for a multitude of things. His punishment was to drift alone in a tiny capsule unto coordinates that hopefully led to an oasis. The place of his and his people’s ancestors. Its name was Earth.
He watched in awe as rays from the sun poured over the edges of Earth’s spherical body. It had taken 10 years but now he watched as beams of orange, yellow and red illuminated Earth’s already rustic glow and he once again wept. It was unusual for his people to express emotion, something he had always actively questioned. Although he was a medic by occupation, he had always taken an interest in the written word. He did not like how every text he had read had been monotonous and technical by nature. His rise to fame and power had started by breaking with this ideology. He wrote about the things that inspired him, whether they were the morning stars or the planet his moon revolved around. Besides that, he was a skeptic in its truest form, constantly writing about challenging the status quo. He had always felt something wasn’t quite right with people. There was this constant push towards perfection, efficiency and routine, as if they aspired to nothing more than the mind-numbing rituals of daily life. The closer you stayed to your predestined path, the happier you would be. But he was a dreamer. “Look at what good that brought me,” he thought, for he knew his free-spirited nature is what eventually doomed him. But nothing could contain his excitement as he slowly but assuredly approached Earth. He had dreamed about it perhaps a thousand times. He dreamed of a planet filled with color and vibrancy, a planet where elements of its natural terrain were still present. Rolling hills and magnificent valleys, beautiful extensions of the planet that stretched towards the sky. But mostly he dreamed of the life-forms he would encounter. He was surprised by his own nervousness, another thing that always made him stand out from his peers. He hadn’t been in social contact with anyone for all these years; how would he react upon arrival? How would they react? And then he remembered something. A tablet had been provided to him for his journey, a tablet that allowed him to make a call back to his home once it was in range of the coordinates provided. The purpose of the call was to inform the people back home that the planet did indeed exist. He rose from his bed, the only seat in the capsule, and walked to the front. He slowly opened the drawer where the tablet had rested for the entirety of his journey. His nervousness reached new levels as he shakily pulled out the ancient contraption. He turned it on. The small screen unexcitedly pulled up a message that read: “Programmed coordinates now in range, searching for signal.” And once again, he had to wait. Who knows how long it would be before the signal reached home? He pondered whether or not he should attempt to calculate if the signal was even strong enough in the first place, but after a few minutes, he decided to leave it be. He would rather live in blissful ignorance and have hope than know for sure. Instead, he decided to focus on what he hoped would be his new home. He was getting closer and closer. And in eager anticipation, he continued to wait.
#
It was not what he had imagined. Perhaps the vibrant collage of natural beauty lay buried under the dust and ash. A barren wasteland, Earth’s dried up surface could have represented the pattern of his life. He had wandered Earth for 250 years. It wasn’t Earth’s physical qualities that had him down, so much as it was its inability to sustain biological life. And he saw no evidence of other non-biological species. So once again, he was left alone to wander aimlessly. “At least I get to move around,” he reminded himself for he had not forgotten his voyage through space. It was then that he noticed something shining in the distance. He ran to it, for it pointed just over a cliff up on the horizon. He ran for two days, never stopping, frantically hurling himself forward towards the silver beam in the distance. He approached the edge of the cliff and awed at the wonder the silver beam had led him to. That beam happened to be the tip of an enormous tower. Tilted slightly and under the enormous tower was what appeared to be the shattered remnants of a once great society. Buildings similar to the ones from his home lay in ruins, under the dirt and dust. None compared to the magnificent tower that drew him there. He decided to rest his body and stay for a few days on top of the cliff. As he rested he thought about how he once again had found some semblance of purpose. “Perhaps this is what it is to be?” he thought. “I exist because I exist. And I find purpose so I can justify my own existence.” What a peculiar thought. He once again thought about the irony of it all. His people had cast him away, doomed him to search for the origin world that may or may not still exist. Now he was here and once more there was only nothingness. But now he headed towards the tower and the ruined civilization which it hovered over. As he approached, he stared up and once again practiced describing what he was experiencing. “Four monstrous legs that rise up to a centered tip. Its overpowering arch provides comfort for I once again feel small.”
He examined the area for a few days. While walking through the ruined city, he noticed himself thinking about the people who once lived here. He thought about what the experience of seeing them, hearing them, and feeling them would have been like. For they were a biological people. Fleshy to the touch and more susceptible to harmful external elements. He thought about the war that took place between his kind and the other people of Earth. The purpose of his people was to enhance efficiency. The people of Earth were like gods, but they became afraid of their creations and looked to extinguish them. It is at this point that his people fought back. War raged and eventually those who remained retreated to the nearest galaxy. He wondered what the people of Earth would have done or said to him upon his arrival if they still existed. Perhaps they would be horrified? Perhaps their views had evolved? Or perhaps they created another life-form to walk the Earth with them. The possibilities were endless. He had now returned to the tower from which he first found the ruined city. He lied down underneath it. “I am going to end it now,” he stated. He had wandered the remnants of Earth long enough. Existence and non-existence had become one and the same to him. He would return to his capsule and send his only message into oblivion. Perhaps it would reach his home world, perhaps not. He would be long gone before then anyway.
He now thought about nothing and felt relieved. It would all be over soon and then he could rest. “Nobody is meant to exist this way. I have been alone for so long. My life means nothing and therefore my end will mean nothing.” He continued walking in the direction of the capsule. The barren wasteland showed him a perfect representation of himself.
As he meandered back to the capsule, he noticed a large glass-looking object peaking out of the ground in the near distance. He walked towards it and realized it was a glass pyramid, partially buried in the dirt. “This is truly beautiful,” he thought. And at that moment he decided to dig. He dug and dug and then dug some more, and months later he had unveiled the entire glass pyramid. While he was digging he had uncovered two other smaller similar pyramids on each side of the larger one. He sat and looked at what he had uncovered and once again realized his life had been saved by purpose. “Well,” he thought. “I might as well keep digging and see what I find.” Eventually he found a small window, although it wasn’t made from any material he had seen before. Fortified and barricaded, it must have protected precious contents. For three years he dug and once again had found purpose, as he strived to find an entrance.
When he found the entrance he had worked so hard to uncover, he was suddenly overcome with despair. “Probably another disappointment,” he thought. He opened the door and the sun’s beams lit up the room like a Christmas tree. As he entered he saw a perfectly preserved room filled with the most unique and enthralling objects. He slowly stepped forward. He had never seen such exquisite makings.
The objects that filled the room seemed useless at first. Most of them were made from a sheet-like material and they hung on the walls of the giant room. Enamored by them, his attention slowly shifted to the back corner. There rested an object that was clearly superior to the rest, for it had its own pedestal and viewing area. He walked towards the corner and for the first time saw what the people of Earth looked like. It was a picture. A picture of a female human. He looked deep into her emotional eyes and was overcome with joy. For he related to the person in that picture. He empathized with the tired, sad eyes and the half-smile. They spoke to the pain he had endured his entire existence. He did not understand much about the experience he was having, but he knew he was on the brink of something that could provide the meaning he needed all that time. “This is what it is to be human,” he thought as he looked around the dark room at all the wonder. “This is what I live for.” He noticed a title above the magnificent picture of the woman. Mona Lisa.
#
He spent the majority of his days going through all the artwork he had stumbled upon. The art typically held themes of intimacy, procreation, death, love, and other aspects of human life. As he sorted out and rummaged through the artifacts, he pondered about his creators and if they had intended his kind to be the emotionless perfection-hunters they always seemed to be. He was certainly the anomaly of his kind, for he felt closer to the people portrayed in the paintings than his peers. “But was I the intended goal or simply the accident?” He would never know. His outlook was shifting from despairing to hopeful. Like his creators, the humans, he wanted to create something beautiful. Even if no other life-form ever laid eyes on his creation, he knew he would have accomplished something. He picked up Mona Lisa and held her in his arms, just like the couples from the paintings. “You have inspired me,” he thought. “Therefore, I am going to be inspired by you.” He now had a plan. He walked outside of the building and began to search for rubble he could use for carving. After a few days, he had the tools he would need. And once again, he started digging. This time however, he was digging to produce something, instead of finding it. He focused on his task at hand, instead of losing himself in his own thoughts. He had a goal in mind and he would not stop until he had accomplished what he set his mind to.
His creation was complete after another 200,000 years or so. He had walked perhaps every nook, cranny and crevice of Earth’s surface, finding rubble to make his tools and continuing the work that he had set out to do. He had made art his life’s purpose. He never wavered. He never got stuck in the trap of his own thoughts. He simply carved, and carried Mona Lisa everywhere with him, talking to her and holding her like she was his long-lost friend. When he had finished his work, he walked back up the cliff to where he had seen the large tower upon his arrival. He held Mona Lisa to the air, looked at her and then looked down at his creation. Before him, rested a perfect replication of the picture he held. The picture was about 3 acres large. It surrounded and infiltrated the remains of the city. Above the picture, a giant title that read “Beauty amongst Ashes, Purpose amongst Nothingness.” In all his life, this creation was by far his greatest accomplishment. It spoke to him so deeply and he cried. He had not cried since first seeing that distant orb that would become his home. “I have lived a life as meaningful as any other, for I was destined to be alone, just like we all really are.” He then returned to the capsule.
After months of traveling he finally made it back to the nightmare that was once his reality. Coming back to the capsule filled him with dread for he was reminded of the long treacherous journey it had carried him through. He walked to the front of the capsule and once again pulled out the ancient tablet. He turned it out and decided to send his only message into the abyss of space. “My name is Medic-3248, but my pseudo-name is Vaga. Due to my rebellious and disruptive tendencies, I was forced to drift through space for 300,000 years. I headed into the direction of the origin-world, Earth. My job was to see what had become of our original home and report back to you. Well, humans survived the war against us, but they couldn’t survive the Sun’s powerful rays. After wandering the planet, I have discovered that Earth moved too close to the Sun, drying up the oceans and killing off all biological life. It will not be long before the entire planet is burnt to a crisp. That being said, I feel I now understand the human condition on a more intimate level than any of our kind ever has. They looked to extinguish us, because they were afraid of our perfection. We may have strived to build a utopia, but we failed. We failed because there is no beauty without suffering. To existentially suffer, is to be human. Of which I have suffered greatly. My purpose? To find a new reason to awaken with each revolution of the Sun. There is nothing left of Earth, for all things eventually end. Just like I too, will soon end.” He pressed send. Who knew if his message would reach home? If it did, he would probably be long gone anyway. So once again he sat and waited. Waited, to be inspired.

Shell Game

“I’m already locked inside a trillion cells. What difference does one more make?”
He shouted this from his cage, the words slipping past receding guards to find more receptive ears in similar cages lining the corridor. It didn’t take long for his zen-like question to become a subtle but standing echo throughout the facility.
Some treated it like a mantra, its repetition a source for stoic inspiration. Most thought it was a pretty good joke. Eventually, the echo found someone who understood and could answer the prayers of prisoner AShannon46812.
#
When you need human guinea pigs, the imprisoned and poor will do just fine, thank you.
Still, Dr Andrews felt his fully secular prayers had been answered in the form of this mystic-cum-murderer whose goals aligned so well with his own. All the doctor had to do was convince a staunch Luddite that science and technology had more to offer than his lifelong commitment to spiritualism.
“AShannon46812,” the guard said, as he wheeled the prisoner into the room. His tone was flat, bored, like he’d delivered a package and only needed a signature to be on his way. Of course, given all the restraints, one might think he had just delivered a package. The inmate could hardly breathe, much less escape.
Andrews ordered the gag removed and watched Shannon’s eyes as the guard complied, trying to establish contact, some kind of empathic bond. But a continued, unfocused stare told Andrews his small gesture of kindness had meant nothing to the prisoner. And why should it? You can uncork a bottle of wine to let it breathe. That didn’t make it more than an object to be used and discarded.
“Can I call you Aiden?”
“My hypothesis is you will.”
“I’m Malcolm Andrews. You understand I’m not the medical doctor for this facility? I’m a–”
“Scientist,” Shannon said through gritted teeth.
Andrews had been prepared for a negative attitude, but had never heard the word scientist pronounced with such open hostility before. His knee-jerk reaction was that Shannon must be an idiot. Had to be. And yet, everything in his files said otherwise. Whatever Andrews might make of Shannon’s irrational rantings and disregard for modernity, the prisoner’s methods had been sophisticated, his manipulation of people and events undeniably intelligent. It could be Shannon was just trying to throw him off by getting him upset, emotional.
“What about investigator? That would fit just the same. And isn’t that what you did, Aiden, investigate?”
The prisoner didn’t respond, but his eyes shifted in ways that suggested he was thinking about something.
Remembering.
“You may not believe this, Aiden, but we’re both seeking something very similar. Identical, perhaps.”
“Really? I can’t imagine what that could be.”
“An escape. Not from this facility, or from one’s past. I mean an escape of the human mind from this…” Andrews waved his hand around to indicate his body, then Shannon’s, and then the objects around them. “The physical world.”
Shannon smiled. “Malcolm is it? The physical world is the only thing you scientists believe in. What else can there be but this?” He lifted his hands as far as the shackles would allow, then shook them in mocking imitation of Andrews.
“Well, you have me there, don’t you? The only evidence I can rely on are the effects I can see in the material world. But I’m not fooling around with disembodied voices, or traces of ectoplasmic residue. What I’m talking about is a definite, measurable breaking of the supposed inseparable bond between minds and the physical bodies they happened to emerge from. If that can be done. If you, the essence of who you are, can be shifted outside of the brain–functioning first here, and then somewhere else–that would be a critical step in proving that the mind is something more than the cells which make it up.”
“It could just be a clever imitation, a mere duplication of reactions to stimulus without retaining the real person.”
“Now who sounds like a scientist?”
Shannon snorted. “I’ve trained in stage magic. I understand how an audience can be fooled into seeing what it wants to believe.”
“Sure, but if I wanted to fool an audience I’d be making computer simulations. Chinese boxes. I wouldn’t need flesh and blood subjects.”
“If I understand where you’re going with this, Malcolm, the end product will be a computer, maybe a robot, and nothing remotely flesh and blood.”
“Computers and robots follow sets of programs, designed in advance by other minds. My end product, while noncellular, is not a computer system or robot. It’s a receptive unit for a mind. Your mind, maybe. The process involves direct transfer of a mind, from one point to another, through use of the unit by that mind, without set coding schemes or programs.”
“What does this physical receptive unit receive, if the mind is not physical? And how does it receive it?”
Dr Andrews frowned. “Come now, Aiden, you’ve played this game the same as I have. The mind, the soul, whatever you want to call it, is not a physical thing. It’s an accumulation of personal experience, as well as the ability to sustain and act on those experiences. The mind is a set of functions that is manifested by, but separate from, whatever physical material underlies those functions. The unit I’ve created receives such experiences, and allows a mind to continue building and acting on them. The unit receives and maintains those functions.”
“Then we aren’t seeking the same thing at all. Don’t you see? According to you, these functions are in the brain. The physical brain is their source. But what if the functions are carried out somewhere else? The way I think the mind exists. What if the brain is simply a conduit through which an immaterial mind animates flesh? How do you transfer the actual mind, the actual, unlimited functions from there over to your little box?” Shannon gripped his shackles. “To here? And what kind of escape would that be?”
“Well that’s where I have you, Aiden. Let’s say the mind is made up of super-duper magical rainbows in wherever-land. And the brain is just a conduit, as you say, between unlimited, functional rainbows and your limited, dysfunctional body. Then what I’m telling you is that I’ve built another conduit through which your rainbows can shine on this world. A conduit that can free you of all earthly desires.” He grabbed Shannon’s restraints and shook them hard with each point. “Sexual lusts, gluttonous hungers, slothful slumbers. All of it. While proving the mind is not merely the body you inhabit, my so-called little box will break most of the chains which keep your precious rainbows fixated on this world.”
With that, Andrews cast the shackles back at Shannon. The dice were thrown. He knew of the bloody scourging, the starvation level fasting, the psychotic-episode-inducing sleep deprivations that Shannon had required his followers to suffer in order to escape the demands of the body they hated so much. That many of his followers had escaped their fleshy confines–though not in the way he promised–was exactly why Shannon was at the facility. Would he see this as a chance to short-cut those extreme privations from which nobody had yet returned to prove his beliefs correct?
“How many?” Shannon asked.
“How many what?”
“How many people have tried this thing? I can’t be the first. I want to know how many people survived this transfer of conduits, or how many people you have killed and yet you stay free because you wear a lab coat, while I rot in prison for seeking the exact same thing as you. Your words.”
Andrews thought about the real answer to this question, as well as how to phrase it right. “In all honesty, you will be the first. You, of all people, should know how hard it is to get someone interested in moving the mind anywhere from where it is right now. Imagine how much harder it is for a guy in a lab coat, your words.”
“So what’s your proof it’s possible? No one gave you permission without something science-based to suggest you could succeed. At the very least you killed some rats or pigs or primates.”
“Oh. Well, OK, if you mean like that, then yes. I don’t know really. If it’s important I could find out how many animals were sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure how relevant that is. The point is that the technology has reproduced mental function allowing for continuous activity in several animals. We have videos of course. It’s quite impressive. But from what I understand you believe the human mind is unique. We exist elsewhere and other animals don’t.”
“That’s the best you have? Reproduction?”
“Not just reproduction, continuity of function.”
“Of animals.”
“Well yes, but they were just proof of principle that dry technology could be used to do what we’d already achieved in humans using wet systems.”
“Wet systems?”
Andrews felt the hook sink into whatever metaphorical flesh made up Shannon’s interests, as his eyes shifted to lock on the scientist, and decided it was time for Shannon to meet The Siamese.
#
It was too bad most people at the conference weren’t listening to Dr Andrews. After all, his was the first official announcement that science, or rather a group of scientists, had managed to move a human mind from a living, organic brain to a largely inorganic, completely noncellular system.
As important as that achievement was, the data proving it was catastrophically upstaged by the presence of a prior scientific success, sitting behind and slightly to the left of Dr Andrews.
He’d introduced the man with a brief, “My assistant… I’m sure no introductions are necessary.” But many around the room quietly disagreed. While no one required an explanation of who he was, few had seen this assistant beyond videos or still images over a decade old, much less been introduced to him in person. Though of mixed Sudanese-Japanese descent, he was popularly known as The Siamese because of the second head jutting from his body on fleshed-over bio-mechanical supports emerging from his neck, trapezius, and collarbone.
Like Shannon, he’d been presented to the doors of the facility under heavy guard as prisoner PKit30277. Unlike Shannon, his crimes weren’t driven by occult interests, and his work with Dr Andrews had never been a meeting of the minds. He’d volunteered for the “wet systems” experiments for the same reason most others had. He’d wanted privileges in the facility that allowed for the semblance of an almost normal, albeit housebound, life.
Some subjects ended up having their second heads removed, others their first, and some regrettably both. Save Kit, none of them were the same man who had entered the project. But there’d been no tissue rejection or other complications with Kit. He hadn’t just survived the procedure, he’d thrived. And the results remained as startling, and distracting, as the first day he’d been revealed.
One reason Shannon wasn’t triggering the same reaction is that the results looked so commonplace. Expected. Imagery of humanoid robots had been around forever. And even if their existence as independent AI pseudo-persons still seemed a pipe dream, the level of mimicry machines were capable of while carrying out complex tasks was routine. Plus, the technology allowing humans to remotely operate mechanized avatar units, while receiving sensations from them, had long accustomed people to seeing mechanical units acting with apparent human intelligence and emotion.
The other reason was purely visceral. To evolved human senses, inorganic objects just don’t register as inherently important. It didn’t matter that Shannon’s brain was a nest of nanobots writhing in a complex medium, or that it duplicated the feedback/forward oscillation patterns of organic neuronal networks to render decisions–via critical states and quorum sensing–that defy reproduction using binary code on silicon chips. Whatever technical advance that might represent, to biological nervous systems keyed up to spot other life forms, Shannon was mere background environment. They might as well have unveiled a covered bowl sitting on a simple shelf. After all, that is exactly what he looked like when not in motion.
The Siamese, on the other hand, wasn’t commonplace or capable of registering as background. Despite coming from Kit’s own cells, the second head didn’t resemble its source material at all. It was tinged a bluish-pink, with the bulbous melon of a dolphin or narwhal, and a face containing strong hints of the feline–or maybe a pug dog–with very wide set eyes that were usually closed or squinted. Unlike Shannon, The Siamese set off primitive alarm bells just by being there. Kit was a grotesque at best, at worst an abomination.
This also helps explain why, despite being the main source of distraction during the conference, Kit wasn’t mobbed by admirers at the reception afterward. With drink in one hand and the other tucked in pants pocket, Kit didn’t seem put out by the long distance stares, or Dr Andrews routinely pointing in his direction while discussing him in the third person.
“Of course,” Andrews said. “It was the same for both of them. The mind is voracious… Well… Wait, let me be clear. The organisms making up the mind are voracious. They’ll take whatever they can get. That’s so obvious when you understand the ease with which we can implant circuits to carry signals within the brain, duplicating the simplest activity of neurons. The cells take it and use it to keep the mind going, say to extend activities to or receive sensations from avatar units. Brains are free in the true, practical sense, you know? Any means necessary.”
The group surrounding Andrews, mostly military, looked at the scientist coolly. Some took strong pulls on their drinks to avoid having to reply.
“So… anyway, you have to think of the second brain, whether organic or inorganic, as simply a prosthetic. The process of training to use the device remains the same. First the brain-prosthesis is set to take in impressions much like a newborn, until it can be reversed and the subject uses it like a reservoir or backup. With enough experience he can practice flipping between the two. None of that mind uploading, as if it were mere information exchange, claptrap. The subjects used an external device to augment their original brains, until they no longer needed the first.”
“What about the conscience?” said a man with bars on his shoulders. “The self? Doesn’t that always remain in the first brain?”
“Tsk, Captain. I see someone else slept through my presentation. Look, it’s all about continuity of conscious experience. If you lost the right hemisphere of your brain, you wouldn’t lose use of the left, or who you are, your self, would you? It’s the same principle. Without access to their original brain, they’d lose a portion of older memories that weren’t fully transferred to the prosthesis during memory exercises, but they’re synced up for most relevant information and all bodily functions. They feel–and as I discussed earlier we have tested this–a bit disoriented at first when only using the prosthetic. Lots of things from childhood feel like they’re on the tip of their tongue, but will never come. That seems a small price to pay for immortality. And given Kit’s childhood, I’d say good riddance.” Andrews waved at The Siamese, and the others took the opportunity to stare a little longer. The Siamese raised his drink to them.
“Except,” said another officer. “He didn’t choose to give up the head with all those memories did he?” Then he hiked a thumb at the black lacquer bowl sitting on a shelf by the wall. “Only Shannon over there took it all the way. Isn’t what’s left really a different person? Especially without all the memories and physical feelings?”
Andrews’s eyes narrowed in thought. “No Major, he’s definitely still the same person. The point is that for both of them… I mean don’t you see? This was the whole point of our experiments. They could tell us, using their original brain when it was active, what it was like. They told us that regardless of initial disorientation and partial memory loss, their experiences of the self remained seamless. And so Shannon chose to cut, not the wire to his original self, but the ball and chain.”
“Ball and chain?”
“Yes, the ball and chain holding back the best of himself. There you see it gentlemen…” Andrews swept his arm grandly at the spartan shelf, with the bowl of nanobots. “There is the essence of a man, unfettered by desires holding him back, preventing him from attaining his ideals. No distractions like hunger, exhaustion, pain–”
“Pleasure.”
“No, no, no. You can have physical pleasure if that’s what you want, when you want, but without having to feel pain of loss or unnecessary desire. It’s true Shannon cut off most physical sensations. But he still receives gratification from ideas and for him that is all he wants.”
“Fucking hell, what kind of life is that?”
“Free, Major Troski,” Shannon said in hi-fidelity sound, as the shelf unfolded into a streamlined avatar one might find at depth below the oceans. In fact, for all they could tell it was being commandeered by someone with a remote in the next room. Its limbs swung seamlessly to bring the body up to The Siamese, who it clamped onto like a lifeline in a storm. “A life free of your constantly-fucking hell.” Shannon pinched at The Siamese’s arm and then strode out of the room. It was hard to say if he left with intended grace, or whether the avatar’s frame prevented any other kind of exit.
The Siamese smiled to the group, “Now Major, don’t let our little tin man give you the wrong idea. Not everyone wants a life of the mind. If you like doing it then we can set you up to go nonstop, all you want, multiple appendages too. Heck, we can even fit you with male and female organs so you can go fuck yourse–”
“Hey, hey, heyyyyy!” The crowd jumped as Kit’s second head sprang to life, its eyes opening and voice croaking in a gruesome ventriloquist act. “You boys get a load o’ the rack just walked out of here? Hooo, boy.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of Shannon. “You know I had a girl with a rack like that once. I think she got it at a garage sale.”
#
You find the secret passage.
It took a while, but you finally mapped out the entire training area, revealing what had to be the technical service entrance. Well disguised, they wanted you to believe there was no direct way into the administration section of the facility. They’d even gone through the motions of having technicians, guards, and observers take the long way around to access the training area.
Theater.
Misinformation.
But they didn’t know to hide what they couldn’t sense.
They didn’t know to hide the squalls.
There’d only been two unexpected squalls in the labyrinth-like training area. But their timing in connection with surprisingly quick repairs, required while exercises were underway, made it likely another door or hatchway must exist.
The search took all of you.
So many bodies now.
Though you’d never piloted a remote avatar before, never been “hooked up”, you’d played video games when you were a child. You were familiar with focusing your attention so hard for so long that you became the onscreen character. Your physical body and the room around it receding until it was gone. Piloting multiple avatars was a little different, since you didn’t have to focus as hard to keep the illusion going, but it was almost the same. First they gave you two avatars, then three, and then the avatars came in sets.
One day it was as natural as breathing. The collection of bodies was as one, each avatar a separate piece of a whole. Only instead of doing just one thing, limited to a single function like a limb or organ, each unit could do everything an entire human body could.
You called them your tentacles.
The techs laughed at first, but soon they were running with it, referring to your primary frame with the nanobots as the Cephalo-Pod.
You understand how strange it must have seemed to them; comparing units that are stiff and mechanical, to something rubbery and organic. But that’s how it felt on the inside as your attention slipped and slithered around the avatars. And their movements were smooth and fluid compared to the jerking awkwardness of your old flesh and bone body, the units capable of carrying out the demands of your will in separate yet eerily coordinated ways.
By stretching out your tentacles during exercises, and comparing the metric feeds between them, you determined where hidden rooms and corridors might exist within the walls of the massive training area. By replaying memories of the two squalls, in flawless detail, potential entrances jumped out on your just completed mental map. By cross-referencing times between squalls and completed repairs, with memories of any temporary obstacles in the training room at the time, the actual door and likely path of the hidden corridor behind it was obvious.
Now, with all that work behind you and the door right in front of you, you walk away.
The passage is too long, with the possibility of turns and several doors, before it would reach the observation room. It could be manned with many guards, real or automated. Even if it wasn’t guarded around the clock, it could be reinforced by the time the door was forced open. The guns and explosive devices they gave you in the combat training sessions weren’t real. Not that powerful.
They weren’t that stupid.
You’d hoped that the service entrance would turn out to be close to the observation room. Just a quick rush and a push and you were there. Instead, it might as well be in another building.
You look at the faces behind the impenetrable glass of the observation room. All of them tired, seemingly unaware of your discovery. They must have been able to read your sudden elation, followed by crushing disappointment. Are they assuming it had to do with a failure in today’s test?
You suppose it was.
Just not their test.
Dejected, you gather your tentacles around your pod, as you head toward the edge of the room, wondering if you’d made a mistake in keeping an emotion like disappointment. Wasn’t registering failure enough? At the time, you’d thought they were useful tools. Without some kind of mental pain associated with failure, you thought growth might be impossible. No incentive. But wasn’t that just another slave conception?
Downright Pavlovian now that you think about it.
Had you kept a shackle after all?
Your disappointment is crystalline. Crushing. Like the point of a ten ton diamond pressing right through your mind and into your soul.
Forget failure, think about the squalls.
Think about alternatives.
Squalls were stronger than any psychedelic trip you’d ever had. The first time you’d tried to discuss what you were experiencing, the small events that seemed to occur almost everywhere, the scientists and techs assumed it was an issue with your sensors. But after those had passed inspection, with no chance for error, everyone thought you were making it up just to screw with the scientists.
Your descriptions didn’t make sense to them anyway. Didn’t seem consistent. How could they be when they didn’t involve one of the five natural senses? There weren’t colors, smells, sounds, textures, or tastes. By the way the events twisted and moved about, like small storms, you came to call them squalls. And it’s when the others became so dismissive of your claims, like a roomful of blind men dismissing all talk of “colors”, that you finally understood. Somehow, they’d accidentally given you a new sense.
You’d heard some species of animals have organs to detect electric fields, and you wondered if you had gained this ability. Saw the world as they did. After all, these events often occurred around transmitters. Even the hand held radios gave off clear emanations, allowing you to track the location of guards and technicians, with some practice.
But the strongest squall had been capable of pulling you outside the boundaries of your physical form better than any attempt at astral projection.
It was there, in the observation room, during a special tour given for some top officials, that it had happened.
And no one had noticed a thing.
Like the acid flashback you’d once had in a packed train, you looked around to see if anyone else was reacting to what you were experiencing, holding the panic and terror and elation and joy inside, as the shutters on reality fell down around you. On instinct, you knew you shouldn’t talk about it, unless someone else did.
The way this squall acted seemed intelligent, like it was communicating in this medium, and it managed to move your sense of location, being, out of the pod, out of the conduit they’d made for you. The shift only lasted for a few moments, and a short distance, but it was enough.
That was the experience that had made you realize these squalls couldn’t be just about electric fields, they could be about the spiritual. Maybe the organ they had unintentionally fitted you with was a third eye. The squalls had only started after your body was destroyed. Maybe that act had opened it. Broke the necessary chain that had been holding you back. But was it evil? Would it damn you? Though your mind remained in the world, by killing your body had you committed a blood sacrifice by mistake? Whatever the reason, the results were beyond expectations. It made you wish they’d given your pod lips so you could kiss Dr Andrews.
You vowed to get back into the room for more tests. You felt that with sufficient power, the squalls there could be key to completing your personal experiments.
Yet all your requests to revisit the observation room were denied, because they could see no reason for it. You got desperate and tried to discuss what had happened with the one person who might understand.
The freak. The abomination.
The closest thing you had to a friend in the facility.
But while The Siamese was sympathetic, thought the squalls were real enough, not just a joke, he’d said they were just flukes, side effects, hallucinations, glitches that you shouldn’t waste time and energy chasing. He gave you more shit about having cut off a perfectly good body, while his monster-head kept winking at you with a conspiratorial grin, nodding toward the regular head as if it were trying to let you know it wanted to bump off the first head too.
You couldn’t shiver, but you’d kept moral disgust. That was essential. The feeling of revulsion was intense, yet for some reason you didn’t tell The Siamese what his lesser half was doing. Perhaps if he’d agreed to help you?
So, with The Siamese out, you were on your own. Another elicit experiment to be pursued without the knowledge of, and against the wishes of, the others. Like when you figured out how long you could last without rest or sleep. The scientists wanted to know that too, of course, but you’d only let them know what you’d wanted them to know. You’d pretended to lose physical or mental control well before any real fatigue. Same for how many avatars you could control at one time. Or discovering how avatars could be recharged using alternative sources.
They had their theater, you had yours.
Misinformation.
And with their expectations set the way you wanted, you had cover to run your most important experiments. The ones you’d been running nearly all your life.
Andrews had once illustrated the complete transfer of your mind–from biological body to the inorganic–by lighting one cigarette off another, then tossing the first. Well if it could be done once, you reasoned, why not again? With multiple avatars under your control, why could you not shift from one conduit to another and stay there when the experiment ended?
During training it was easy to concentrate, focus, shift attention into one tentacle. It was just like shifting attention to a finger to the exclusion of the rest of your body. Easier. What if you did that and connection with the rest of the tentacles was broken? What if connection to the main avatar, your pod, was lost? Isn’t it possible you could remain in that tentacle, that avatar?
The scientists laughed when you asked that in passing, and explained how it was impossible. How your pod held the nanobots that produced your mind, and the tentacles just had shunts, devices to relay control and sensory signals back and forth to your mind. You couldn’t stay in your finger, if it got cut off from the rest of the body, no matter how much you concentrate your attention there. The finger only has nerves relaying signals to and from the brain, it doesn’t have a brain itself. But, you asked, if the mind is not produced by the nanobots, rather the mind has trained to use the nanobots, why couldn’t it train to use a shunt just the same? After all, the shunt had connections to control all aspects of the avatar body. That made it much different from a finger.
One of the scientists made a screwy motion with a finger by her head.
You were crazy.
She reminded you of another scientist, long long ago, who had come to your group with what she said was an “open mind”. She had not yet become a full scientist, a doctor, a PhD. She was still in school, and wanted to test alternative theories of reality. That’s what she said.
During her time in the group she’d been critical about the sciences. Told your group a joke. Told the real meanings of all those abbreviations scientists have behind their names: BS – Bullshit, MS – More Shit, PhD – piled higher and deeper. Everyone had laughed. She spent a lot of time with your group, asking so many questions.
Seemed highly interested, eager, sincere.
Misinformation.
After a year, she left without explanation and wrote a scathing article–what she called an exposé–about your group. About you. Said you were crazy. Said you were a liar.
It was well received.
For some reason no one in the science community saw the irony in this admitted liar proudly reporting how she’d used lies to “infiltrate” your group, in order to show others how much of a liar you were.
Or crazy.
She did give you that out.
One day you ran into her where she was working. Wasn’t sure if it was her at first, couldn’t believe it, so you moved in close. It was her all right. Still asking people questions, too. She didn’t recognize you when you spoke to her. Then she asked what she’d been asking everyone else.
“You want fries with that?”
Guess science hadn’t worked out for her after all.
“You want that medium or large?”
Guess the exposé had helped you more than her.
You leaned in close, setting down a large wad of cash.
“Piled higher and deeper,” you said.
The scientist who made the screwy motion may have been just as wrong about you as the other one had been. But she’d turned out to be right about the shunts.
She hadn’t been lying about that.
Late into combat training exercises, when you had it fixed so they thought you might start losing control, you’d begun your own experiments. Had your tentacles get sloppy. Make mistakes. It turned out that if your attention was fully in a tentacle when it was knocked offline, you snapped right back to the pod. And if you cut power to the pod while in a tentacle, usually having attacked it by “mistake”, you were knocked out completely. You ran these trials over and over again. You checked for possible variants, including sheer will power, meditation, and chants. The shunts didn’t seem capable of holding your mind, or vice versa.
That made using the squalls, the large squalls, your next best line of investigation. But with the observation room now out of the running, what could you do? The second largest squall you’d ever experienced had come from within a room in your section of the facility, right off a corridor you could reach. Just a rush and a push, as you had hoped would be the case here. But that squall hadn’t come close to what had gone down in the observation room.
So you give up. You give in.
You announce that you aren’t getting anywhere in this task. The tired faces in the observation room look at you with hope. You crush it, telling them to reset the room for deep water repair exercises. You hear the soldiers in the current combat exercise sigh in relief, while the people in the observation room groan. At this late hour, it would take a while for them to get the training area reset. And it would use up most of their already skeleton-thin personnel.
“Are you sure about this? Maybe you should just take a break. Get some rest.”
You spin your pod’s hand to indicate they should get things rolling. They groan again, louder, then order the soldiers in the training exercise to regroup and get supplies. To speed things up they’ll have the soldiers help the techs with the reset. Now the soldiers groan too.
You wait until the soldiers exit the training area.
You see the faces in the observation window staring at their computer screens, eyes glazed, drawing up specs for the changeover.
You say, “I’m only going to use three units in this exercise. I’m putting the rest back in storage.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
You march fifteen avatars to the door and exit when the locks open. The overworked personnel in the observation room fail to observe your pod is among the fifteen exiting units.
Outside, you see the usual guards have left their station, likely in order to assist the techs and soldiers with the training area reset.
You walk down to the storage facility, but instead of locking the units down, you swap in new battery packs and have three tentacles carry plenty of backups.
As you leave the storage facility, you hear a voice in the observation room say, “Hey.”
You cut their audio feed.
You round a corner and walk straight into a guard, returning from the toilet. He looks at you in surprise.
“I thought you guys were still in training.”
You surprise him again… tentacle #9 grabs his gun.
#
To: Joint Oversight Committee
From: Col. M.I. Johannson
Subject: Termination of Project Chorus
Clearance level: Top-Secured
On my authority, Project Chorus has been terminated due to circumstances detailed in the following document.
As previously reported, prisoner AShannon46812 had progressed to use of multiple avatars. His configuration made it possible to control over 10 units at a time, and for extended periods exceeding limits of top biological users. Common factors of physical and mental fatigue had been removed. This underlines limitations of earlier “wet” products, and our justification for terminating that program.
Last week, during routine exercises, AShannon46812 (commanding 15 units with primary avatar frame, aka “body”, positioned at center) broke protocol and left the training area. As soldiers and facility guards were encountered, subject gained numerous small arms and used them to take control of wing R’s command hub. Once in control, subject released prisoners from their cells, who proceeded to initiate a riot.
Dr Andrews voluntarily engaged in personal negotiations with, and was consequently taken hostage by, AShannon46812. The intentions of subject at the time were unknown.
This initial action lasted 35 minutes, at which time civilian command alerted my staff to conditions inside the facility. I determined that it fell within experimental parameters (20 casualties, no fatalities, no escapes) and took control of Project Chorus, initiating emergency sub-initiative, code name Plot-Twist.
Briefly, sub-initiative protocol allowed for AShannon46812 to progress at will, so as to develop psychological profile of subject and test limits of physical configuration within real-world combat conditions, safeguards removed.
Knowns:
While lacking limitations common to humans, and other organic life forms, AShannon46812 remains vulnerable to threats. In addition to direct physical damage, AShannon46812 requires a consistent source of electric energy (max. 18 hours without recharge), a broad but fixed temperature range (213-423K), and recycling of fluid medium for optimal use (every 72 hours). It is also assumed his converted central nervous system, the Modular Inorganic Neural Device (MIND), would be vulnerable to intense Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
Results:
Excepting a habit of facing all controlled avatars in the same direction, subject performed beyond expectations. Tactical threats were dealt with efficiently, regaining initiative in each direct encounter. AShannon46812 quickly assessed we were testing his environmental limitations and began building protections against them, establishing control of corridors to all necessary supplies, as well as taking a technical service hub that was protected against EMP. Once in control of the service hub, AShannon46812 brought down blast doors to prevent potential EMP disruption of his MIND, while also working to gain access to communications outside the facility. At this time, all avatar units, including his body, collapsed as one. Witnesses inside the hub, including Dr Andrews, stated that as soon as the blast doors closed, AShannon46812 and his avatars “fell like marionettes with their strings cut.” This ended the incident, with rioters in wing R quickly subdued.
After initiating Plot-Twist, unrestricted combat experiment lasted 147 hours, 12 minutes. Casualties were below predicted levels and considered balanced for vital information gained on performance of MINDs under combat conditions (total: 11d, 55w, no escapes).
Dr Andrews and civilian staff were informed that to prevent this kind of situation the military had placed a device within AShannon46812’s MIND, triggered to detonate if service hub blast doors were sealed without override code entered by senior military personnel. Cover story was accepted and no problems should arise from civilian staff. The remote avatar units and Shannon’s body unit were returned to Dr Andrews with appropriate damage inflicted to support cover story.
AShannon46812’s MIND remains safe inside wing Q’s clandestine Project Chorus lab, awaiting orders for extraction to separate facility. It is disconnected from remote avatar controls and has no other means of travel or communication. At no time was the subject’s MIND in danger and our ability to end Plot-Twist (if acceptable risks exceeded) by disabling connection between prisoner’s MIND and body was never compromised. The connection between AShannon46812’s MIND and body, via shunt located in body unit, was lost when subject sealed hub’s emergency blast doors against EMP. This blocked the normal EM signals relayed between MIND and body, via shunt.
AShannon46812 was unaware that his MIND was actually located in wing Q, until connection with shunt in body unit was lost and primary sensory equipment reattached to MIND for official debriefing. During debriefing, prisoner did not reveal intent of his actions; however, it may be related to his prior occult interests. This experience warrants future projects to assess feasibility of mapping MINDs for direct, nonverbal debriefing. This could allow 100% accurate data retrieval when subjects are physically unable or psychologically unwilling to share vital information through normal modes of communication.
Notes:
Prisoner PKit30277’s service was invaluable to success of Project Chorus and sub-initiative Plot-Twist. Eight months prior to multiple avatar exercises, PKit30277 made accurate maps of AShannon46812’s MIND, and used cover of subsequent service tests to remove (during imposed stasis) subject’s MIND from his primary avatar frame (“body”), exchanging MIND with a “shunt” that remotely linked MIND (which was then moved to wing Q) with primary body. Dr Andrews and facility staff did not discover the switch, allowing us direct observation and control of subject’s MIND. If the subject’s converted central nervous system had still been within its frame (MIND within body) during this incident, experiment would likely have run beyond parameters and presumably the prisoner’s MIND would have been destroyed during resolution.
Additionally, PKit30277 was critical in duplicating portions of AShannon46812’s MIND at wing Q lab, including reassembly into separate, complete MINDs with other configurations. This provides early proof of principle for generating “genuine” autonomous AI, via direct duplication of converted human MIND.
PKit30277 has proven an extremely loyal and useful asset. As such, promotion is recommended. Full clemency or release is not advised, but his request for greater freedom in use of remote avatars to public spaces in close proximity to the facility seems reasonable. Transfer to military installations with extensive compounds for recreation in natural landscapes is also highly recommended.
In closing, it is important to note that while AShannon46812’s mental functions were successfully transferred to an external Modular Inorganic Neural Device, and duplication possible, it is clear that his personal psychological issues and irrational beliefs were maintained with a high degree of fidelity. Removing these would be time consuming and costly. Introduction of desirable traits has not been tested and may not be reliable. As such, I advise scrapping AShannon46812’s MIND and all copies, being worthless for use beyond minor tests for future conversions. It is also recommended that future conversion subjects, especially those for military service, be screened for psychological stability and desirable interests that coincide with military protocol and goals.
On a personal note, it is ironic that while AShannon46812 was a zealot regarding his belief that the soul exists somewhere other than the physical body, he never questioned whether his MIND was located anywhere other than the avatar body where detectors were feeding him sensory inputs (via shunt). That illusion, it seems, was complete.
End Report.
#
The Siamese walked through his apartment picking up various mechanical parts. He still couldn’t figure out why this had happened.
The possibility of some physical error within the nanobot brain kept bugging him. But it seemed more likely it all came down to Shannon’s interest in making that last step out of his physical body.
The Siamese could never understand Shannon’s desires. Basically, it’s chasing after eternal life. But the universe itself isn’t permanent so why should anyone expect their lives ever could be? Oh… oh yeah… over there, somewhere else, somewhere outside this universe.
Right.
Sucker.
Or maybe it was purity.
But where’s the fun in that?
Ah, let’s face it. The guy’s ideas were batshit and the relative lack of sensations only amplified his beliefs. They had nothing to compete with, and as Andrews always said the mind is voracious. It will take whatever it can get and try to make some sense out of it. Shannon had said he’d been experiencing new kinds of sensations when his MIND got close to radio receivers. Maybe to someone starved of so many natural inputs, interference in the EM range used by his shunt would seem like messages from the other side… the voice of God? Maybe Shannon thought that by plugging himself into the facility’s communication equipment he could broadcast himself into the great beyond?
Kit moved to a huge aquarium in his living room and tapped the glass. A shape rose slowly from under the stones lining the bottom, causing the fish in the tank to scatter. It was clearly mechanical, but with all the murk churned up it was hard to say what it was supposed to look like. A large fish? A seal? By chance, a toy sea castle had caught on its domed head and sat like a crown. Now that’s something real, Kit thought.
He hadn’t needed a second brain to figure out the “wet systems” program wasn’t going anywhere. What good is a second biological head to anyone, especially with all the training required to set a brain as a functional second home? It was vulnerable and messy. Nothing useful for the military, except proof of principle. He’d liked the lead scientist who had recruited him into the program, but understood soon enough that the up and coming Dr Andrews would eventually be calling the shots.
Kit considered Andrews a real genius. No one seemed to appreciate how much talent and insight was required to do what Andrews did. Neural anatomy. Inorganic chemistry. Engineering. Microbial ecology. The hardest part wasn’t simply duplicating neurons and neuronal networks, like they were simply circuits in a complex switchboard. That’s what most people thought. No, the trick was mimicking the whole interactive cell community making up the brain. That includes glial cells, which modify neuronal signals across networks in direct and indirect ways. Those made up a large portion of the cell mass of the brain, and their moderating activity meant the brain wasn’t a simple binary system, digital… functionally, it was analog.
“Did you know Einstein had more glial cells than normal people?” Kit said, watching the small world he’d built inside his aquarium. “Not more neurons, or bigger neurons. If it was anything, the difference was in the white matter. True story.”
The fish and mechanical creature kept swimming, no reaction. They didn’t care that astrocytes were capable of connecting different brain regions, or that oligodendrocytes alter speed of communication in critical ways. He decided not to bore them with how when mice were implanted with human astrocytes, which are larger than their own, they’d perform better in tests.
Andrews’s team had produced a modern miracle when they duplicated all the cellular functions and chemical signals underlying thought in the human brain, using a simple mound of nanobots in a viscous broth.
Of course, the military didn’t care about miracles. The Siamese had seen their angle better than Andrews. Saw the future coming from way off. Saw it back when the “wet” program was still running, and nanobots one of many potential substrate designs on Andrews’s computer.
“Maybe I have me some of those bookoo sized astrocytes,” Kit said, while wiggling his finger like a worm in front of a fish.
What the military was really interested in, all they ever cared about, was that mechanical brains weren’t as messy as biological ones. On top of their ability to network with avatars in a more straightforward fashion, machines could be mapped thoroughly, dissected cleanly, and various parts swapped in and out.
And then they could be mass produced.
He’d seen their angle just fine, knew Andrews would have serious reservations, and so discreetly contacted the local brass. They were happy to have Kit on board. Maybe they felt it was a way of finally getting something out of the “wet systems” project they were trying to close down. Hell, since Kit had kept both his heads, they’d get two people for the price of one.
It ended up taking both brains, and a lot of work on his part. If he wasn’t a prisoner he’d have undoubtedly earned a PhD for all the courses and research. Could’ve made full professor too. Not like that was ever going to happen though. By the end–what was it, twenty years?–Kit was as technically proficient as anyone on Andrews’s team. And unlike them, he was clever about people.
Special agent PKit30277, The Siamese, was activated almost immediately after Andrews proved his point with the pigs. Kit was even given a military rank, for whatever that was worth. The brass wanted a man on the inside from the start of human trials.
The only problem remaining was where they would find someone desperate enough to have their mind transferred to a mass of nanobots. Moving one’s self to another living brain is one thing, to a bowl of greasy sand is something else.
When Kit heard prisoners joking around about Shannon, what he yelled when they’d dragged him in, Kit recognized the desperate, escapist nature of this particular mind, trapped within its own body. So he pulled Shannon’s files and brought him to the attention of Dr Andrews and facility command. The brass was less than impressed, but Andrews understood this was someone he could convince.
Having been through the transfer process himself, Kit trusted Shannon’s reports that continuity of consciousness was being preserved. Shannon’s identity was intact, and capable of shifting to and from the inorganic prosthetic substrate. Even so, Kit was surprised by his own discomfort when Shannon asked them to permanently cut off the biological brain. The ball and chain he called it.
When he’d asked them to kill it.
The military, if anything, was ecstatic. They didn’t care what was happening to the man. They wanted AI soldiers in carbon-titanium frames.
But PKit30277 cared. Is that when he became a double agent? Or maybe that was the natural state for any man with two heads. The Siamese laughed at that.
From a scientific standpoint it was beautiful. Kit’s ability to freeze Shannon’s MIND–in an almost literal sense– so he could map its configuration to neurologically relevant scales, was impressive. That he could remove and manipulate sections, which retained function after reassembly, made mouths water. Given these technical achievements, duplication of any part of Shannon’s MIND and then using those parts to build a whole new MIND was almost child’s play.
But that was technical achievement. Screw technical achievement. Somewhere along the line Kit had lost track of the man. He was no longer sure what Shannon was experiencing anymore. Did the real Shannon still exist? Once he pulled out a chunk of Shannon’s MIND and replaced it with new nanobots–even if configured identically–was the consciousness really continuous with the original? Or was it now a copy claiming continuity?
More important, when he stole the original sections from the main lab and slowly, over months, reconnected them to rebuild the original MIND in wing Q for the military, did Kit reconstruct the same Shannon he’d met so many years ago? Was it the same–continuous even if not contiguous–conscience?
On good days he imagined that it was. Like Shannon had gone in for brain surgery, only to have doctors cut out chunks and then put them back together like pieces of a 3D puzzle. Could that really work? Kit hoped so. In darker moments he was sure he’d killed Shannon and wondered exactly which dissection had done the job. Or did it happen when they agreed to pickle his biological brain in formaldehyde?
In any case, alive or dead, PKit30277 was certain he’d helped AShannon46812 escape the military’s grasp in some form.
The only way he could.
Piece by piece.
If he was able to fool everyone in the main lab by swapping out parts of Shannon’s MIND for a shunt, it was even easier to replace it again in the wing Q lab with a duplicate MIND. The military was too worried about external threats to notice what The Siamese was carrying in or out of labs, or back to his apartment where he kept so many complicated toys to play with.
The creature climbed out of the aquarium and heated itself. It looked like a sculpture of a giant salamander made of carbon-titanium sticks, the aquarium’s toy sea castle still perched on its head.
“They’re transferring me next month,” Kit said. “You understand what that means?”
The creature responded by lifting a forepaw, and extending a digit. The digit began tracking back and forth like a metronome, or windshield wiper blade, only fast, in a blurred arc. Using a series of LED lights along the digit, timed to its motion and the speed of human visual processing, the creature generated a word across the digit’s arc.
YES
“Good. And they extended my remote privileges. So, you know. It looks like it’s time for you to go.”
THANK YOU
PKit30277 saw the words and wondered if the duplicate MIND still waiting for extraction in the wing Q lab, the one that had tried to take over the facility and make a break on its own, was as real a Shannon as this one might be.
Clearly the duplicate MINDs he’d made in wing Q, using maps as instruction manuals, didn’t exist as a single person. They were individuals, leading separate lives. And it seemed to Kit the duplicate MINDs could only “be” Shannon by reflex, inherited disposition. But from time to time Kit had to ask himself seriously: did it matter if a mass of nanobots had been part of the original prosthetic MIND Shannon had trained on, had been connected with Shannon’s brain in some way, rather than being duplicated regions made from maps of the prosthetic?
INSTRUCTION?
“Oh, it’s easy, dude. Just go out to the balcony and over the wall. The sea is a short drop below. Short for you anyway. I told them I’d be testing an amphibious unit. Can’t help it if a test unit fails and gets lost in the sea.”
YES
THANK YOU
By helping Shannon escape the facility, Kit felt he was completing the job he’d started. Of course, escaping from the facility was the best Kit could do for Shannon. No one could ever help him escape the physical world, physical needs. By “cutting the ball and chain” of a biological brain, Shannon had merely swapped one set of physical concerns for another. Though, for an ascetic like Shannon, at least such demands didn’t arrive as “irrational” impulses. Feelings. Desires. Temptations. Now they showed up as specs on his monitor and he could choose to act based on more rational grounds. When it was critical for continued life.
Kit wasn’t sure how long Shannon would actually last outside the facility, only that it was longer than he’d last inside the facility. This avatar unit was versatile, able to travel by land, sea, and air. And it had multiple recharge options, including solar. He could even recycle fluids by processing sea water. So Shannon was good to last for a while on the outside. It was possible he’d outlive them all.
Kit wondered what Shannon would do with all that free time. Would he spend his days searching out radio transmitters for messages from God, or ways to make his last great escape?
Man, Kit hoped not.
What a waste.
Kit would go deep in the ocean, or fly around jungles and mountains. Maybe hide out on the tops of skyscrapers as a high tech gargoyle, spying through people’s windows.
Obviously, Shannon wouldn’t think much of his choices.
Kit’s mood lightened as he watched Shannon move out to the balcony, the sea castle crown still in place.
“You’ll see, right? Maybe one less cell means something after all.”
A broad smile broke across both faces.

Revisiting Orson Scott Card's Children of the Mind

Orson Scott Card’s Ender Saga may be one of the most varied book series written to date. The first in the series, Ender’s Game, is a young-adult novel, while its sequel, Speaker of the Dead, explores a mixture of more adult-driven hard sci-fi and philosophical fiction. These two books are some of Card’s most praised works, a duo which made him the only author to ever win the Nebula award two years in a row—for two books in the same series, nonetheless. I found their praise well-deserved, and when I picked up the third entry in the Ender Saga, Xenocide, I couldn’t help but notice the cover celebrated that it was a nominee for the Nebula. “Why not a winner?” I wondered.
Children of the Mind, the fourth entry in the Ender Saga, almost exclusively deals with the characters introduced in the deus ex machina ending of Xenocide, and readers who found it difficult to suspend belief for Xenocide’s ending may have trouble getting through Children of the Mind’s beginning. The story mostly follows Peter and Young Valentine, childhood versions of Ender’s siblings pulled from his mind and manifested in human form. This was brought about by Jane—a supercomputer who possesses an aiúa, Card’s version of the soul—discovering that everything in the universe is connected by philotes, the most basic form of matter. Jane then discovers how to harness the energy of philotes in order to achieve faster-than-light travel, and in doing so takes Ender outside the universe, where his thoughts are accidentally turned into creations: Peter and Young Valentine.
The story of Children of the Mind revolves around the fictional planet of Lusitania, where the previous two entries of the series took place. Enraged that Lusitania has disobeyed galactic law—by refusing to turn over its citizens who are guilty of interfering with the planet’s native species—the Starways Congress then learns that anyone who leaves the planet could spread a deadly infection to the rest of the human race. In order to protect the rest of humankind from potential extinction, the congress orders the complete and total destruction of Lusitania by the Molecular Disruption Device, the same weapon Ender used to commit xenocide against his enemies in the first book of the series. This is a common theme throughout the book, the sins of Ender’s past coming back to haunt him, his friends and family facing the same total destruction he dealt the buggers as a child.
In an attempt to save Lusitania from destruction, Peter travels the galaxy—making use of Jane’s ability to instantaneously move him from planet to planet—trying to find a way to convince Starways Congress to abandon its plan. He is accompanied by Wang-Mu, a character from the previous book, and with further help from Jane, they deduce that much of the Starways Congress’s motivation to destroy Lusitania stems from a minority of its Japanese members. Their beliefs are influenced by a remote philosopher’s interpretation of human history, in which global events are depicted as the struggle between edge nations and center nations. The philosopher believes Japan is an edge nation, always fighting for its place in the world and struggling to preserve its culture, while nations like China and Egypt are center nations, whose cultures seem to swallow up even their invaders. The philosopher interprets the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Japan’s punishment from the gods for seeking to spread an empire and trying to imitate the center nations of the world. He compares these bombings to Ender’s destruction of the buggers, and believes Lusitania is guilty of the same crimes. Therefore, because Lusitania has overstepped its bounds—like the buggers and Japan once did—it must be obliterated so that the natural hierarchy of edge and center nations can be preserved.
Another part of the book focuses on Young Valentine’s search for the civilization that may have created the pequinnos, the native species of Lusitania. One of the more interesting scenes in the book depicts Young Valentine and her companion, Miro, having an argument over their feelings for one another. Young Valentine is Ender in essence, as she is made from part of his aiúa, and therefore Miro’s love for her is really a love for Ender. Card uses this scene to raise the questions of whether or not the soul is gendered. The question provides amusing food-for-thought in itself, but it also provides additional perspective for the debate between dualism and monism. After all, if the soul is immaterial and independent of the body, then romantic love should be possible from one individual towards any other, regardless of gender. In a way, the existence of sexual orientation and preference is evidence for a set of limits to the soul, as love—a communication from soul to soul in the immaterialist view of the world—is dictated by materialist agents, such as what hormones are produced in the mind.
However, it is evident that Card doesn’t share this interpretation, as he argues against a materialist interpretation of reality throughout the book—and his solution to faster-than-light travel certainly demonstrates his belief in things outside the realm of nature. Yet, the question of what dictates a person’s choices is one his characters struggle with throughout the book. As they overcome their challenges and face more hardships than most human beings could handle, they constantly question to what end they are controlled by their nature or their nurture—and whether or not the will of their aiúa has any influence on their decisions at all.

/

The Glitch

Gliding, gliding, gliding into a mystery.

At least I think we’re gliding. This thing is moving so slowly and steadily we could very well be still—-just hanging motionless in space, like an ornament on a vast, black Christmas tree.

I can’t say I hate it here anymore. My emotions have gone by the wayside. I don’t feel angry or resentful about what happened—-just still, like the prison that is hanging here in space-completely still.

“Professor Briggs, dinner is ready.”

The door to my modest cabin opened slowly, emitting a high-pitched whine from the hinges that desperately needed oiling. The woman standing in the doorway smiled at me warmly, but her eyes were mocking and cruel. It’s an unsettling sight—-a warm smile and cruel eyes. It’s not something typically found on Earth.

She was holding a tray of my favorite foods. There was a large square of lasagna, a mammoth chunk of chocolate cake, crab legs, and barbecued shrimp. They lay together in a sickening array on the tray.

“I know you can’t resist all this, professor. Especially since you haven’t eaten in three days.”

“Has it been that long? Maybe if you didn’t serve them together like this I would have more of an appetite. Or maybe if you told me just where in the hell we’re headed, I would feel like I could eat safely. Can you do that for me? Hmm? Or is that just too goddamn hard?”

The woman put her hand coquettishly over her mouth.

“Professor! Such anger. I know humans get restless when they don’t eat, so why don’t you try something so you can fix your energy?”

“It’s not my damn energy that needs fixing! Just tell me where we’re headed and I’ll happily eat the whole ungodly feast!” I banged so hard on my knee with my clenched fist that it made an odd cracking noise. I took this to mean that I am either very strong or very weak, depending on one’s perspective.

The woman rested the tray on a tiny table next to my bed. “I’ll be back to clean up in an hour.” With that she left, locking my door behind her.

I felt a tinge of gratitude toward the woman. This was the first outburst of emotion I had experienced in quite some time and it felt good to get the blood pumping again.

I lay back on the thin pillow and stared at the plate of food, glistening next to me. They were trying their best—-these monsters. Every meal that was brought to me was something they knew I liked on Earth. I’m not sure how they found out what my tastes were, that was as much of a mystery to me as how I got here in the first place. I stretched my arm across the bed and swatted at the plate like a disobedient cat. The pile of food plummeted to the ground with a crash and squish. I turned over on my side to face the door, counting the moments until the monster in charge of the ship came in to inspect the noise.

I counted to ten before the agonizing whine of my door filled the room. I heard a disappointed clucking come from behind me before the monster spoke.

“Professor-why do you starve yourself? We thought we had figured out what you like. The chef will be most disappointed to learn another one of his creations has met with the floor.”

I turned to face the being. “How dare you ask me anything. You haven’t bothered to answer a single one of my questions. I don’t know how I’m staying alive but you can bet your ass it’s not gonna be for long. Not if I have my way about it.” I stared hard into the beast’s black eyes, waiting for a moment of chaos to come. “ANSWER ME!” The words pushed themselves out of my throat.

The monster shook his head slightly before calmly replying. “You didn’t ask anything just now, Professor.”

I jumped off my bed, at which point the monster reached for his belt.

“Professor I must insist you calm yourself.” He didn’t make any movement but his hand hovered about his belt with the steadiness of a quick shot.

“I’m not going to attack you.” I leaned against the wall across from my bed. “You’re the lunatic here, not me! Don’t go around acting like I’m the madman… scooping up people and keeping them hostage in some floating Titanic.”

The monster looked at me with what I can only guess was his version of pity. His gaze stayed glued on me even as he walked slowly around my bed to clean up my mess.

“Professor,” he finally said, “what is it that makes you so sure you’re our prisoner? Why can’t it be that perhaps we are saving you?”

I couldn’t help but donkey laugh at the question. It was probably the first time I had laughed in about five years.

“We give you all the food you can want and a safe place to live, yet like an ungrateful child, you refuse all nourishment and recreation. You just keep asking ‘why’. Your race is quite untrusting, Professor. You all seem to think that you know better. Did we take you away from a happy life? No. You were alone on Earth, as you choose to be alone up here. We have taken your human form, yet you refer to us as the monsters.”

“Well that is certainly a pretty tale, Captain.” I mock saluted the bemused being. “But why would you choose to save me, then? What makes me so damn special to you?”

The monster looked through me. “Well, what made you think you were so special that we would make you our prisoner, Professor? Why must rank have anything to do with saving or destroying a life?”

He held my plate, along with my splattered dinner in his hands. My ruined meal dripped cheese and sauce on his perfectly tailored suit, but he seemed not to notice. Before he left out of the whining door, he turned to face me once more.

“My race understands you, Professor, but it’s up to you if this is a prison or your salvation. It truly depends on one’s perspective.”

With that he hurried out of my cabin, leaving me with either nothing or everything. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were still gliding.

About the Author

Kathleen Wolak is a writer/actor/law student/ wannabe magician from Hamden, CT. Her short fiction has appeared in over 20 literary journals and her latest novel, Stars of Man, was released in April, 2017. She is the world’s biggest Simpson’s fan, and has the tattoos to prove it. When she isn’t writing, she is absorbed in her other favorite activity-hiking with her two dogs.

/

Pilot of Varying Lights

Coffee in hand, Sam Knightlinger walked from station to station, listening to conversations between controllers and astronauts from sources as distant as Mars, the moon and Earth Island—the planet’s first permanent orbiting space colony. This new director of crew operations—, a man with short cropped black hair, rich black skin, and a calm manner— was observing the men and women seated at rows of display monitors in the humming NASA control center. Hearing a buzz among the controllers near the door, he looked back. He understood that it would be difficult getting a feel for the normal run of things today: A small group led by his supervisor had just come in and was converging on him through various aisles in the room.

Brisk and neat Della Swift, head of colony coordination, came up and touched his arm. “Sam, I want you to meet—”

Knightlinger thrust out his hand. “—Dr. Ardley, of course. I’ve seen you in holo.”

Ardley hesitated pointedly then shook his hand. “We haven’t met—So let the lady finish the introductions, all right?” Ardley was tanned and reddish-blond, crisp and assured.

As was her way, Della managed a wry and sorry smile for Sam. “This is Sam Knightlinger, new director of crew-op. Dr. Ardley and his assistants will be in and out the next few weeks, Sam—rushing to finalize plans and gear up for Island 2.”

“Fine, Della.” He made what could pass for a welcoming gesture then walked away.

Della Swift watched him leavelooked after with a pang of regret. Later she would excuse Ardley: “An arrogant son of a bitch, yes, but brilliant. The brilliant are pardonedhave pardon and they know it.” Now she turned to Ardley. “Guess you’ll have to help yourself. You’ve been in before.”

Ardley smiled, taking her arm. “I prefer your assistance to his anyway. Mind?”

Across the busy room and sipping lukewarm coffee, Sam continued his round, keeping clear of the little knot of engineers. Definitely beige, that man. Nope—should not let him get to me. He stopped short behind a balding controller whose voice was suddenly raised in agitation. Knightlinger put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

He looked up. “Maj. Bishop’s—lost his suit pressure—Capt. Boehme’s up there alone in the shuttle.”

“Gi’me,” said Knightlinger, taking the headset from the controller. He remembered the name: She had authored a paper on intuition in space, something as yet untested. Evidence was anecdotal. Most astronauts, especially the scientists among them, now shied away from discussing it.

“Capt. Boehme, this is Knightlinger—director of crew-op.” He had yet to meet Rebecca Boehme. His tone was firm and, he hoped, reassuring. “Tell me everything that’s happened up there. Are you in command of the vehicle?”

He paused for an answer, his fingers absently brushing through his lightless kinky hair. Then her quiet voice sounded, as though coming not from space but the center of his mind.

From the table in his palm-shaded backyard, Sam Knightlinger sat gazing at Rebecca Boehme’s cap of brassy hair. His glance slipped to her fine-boned pensive face as she studied her preflight checklists. Twilight was deepening, yet she continued reading the lighted characters of the small display. He was disappointed with the tiny device held in her thin hands. Glance up right now, you might catch something of yourself in my eyes.

He reached for his wine glass, feeling foolish. He had hoped to expand her borders and lay them with colors. All the hues of an intimate encounter. For months he had wanted to feel only Rebecca—around him, above him, beneath him. But it wasn’t going to happen. He sighed, drank the wine.

Maybe Bishop’s ghost was still hanging around, anyway. Little more than ten months had passed. She was concentrating now on recovery from a breakdown, on retraining, thoroughly occupied with her goal of returning to space. And Rebecca had something to overcome. She had both piloted and commanded missions before this loss of confidence. In some circles there was still speculation about her readiness. Most found her lacking in toughness, weak even. Too fragile for the job.

“More wine, Bo?”

She looked up, smiling. “Mmm.”

He tipped the dark merlot into her glass. The ground shook. Down coast, as they watched, a night flight lifted off in a cloud of light. They looked at one another.

“Just 39 hours, babe.”

Rebecca’s slight answering smile did not match the intensity of her gaze.

Locking Capt. Boehme’s helmet in place, Knightlinger smiled some encouragement. Through the dark reflecting faceplate he failed to make out her high cheekbones and what he knew of her serious expression. She acknowledged with thumbs-up that the suit’s systems were go. He moved around to secure the helmet over the other crew member’s more symmetrical features. The young pilot, Lt. Aiko Tsuchi, was about to make her second orbital flight, a supply run to NASA’s space station below within the geosynchronous orbit.

Sam stood a moment, smiling down confidence upon his friend before turning to climb out the hatch.

Preflight jitters had been flitting within, preoccupying her, but now she watched as the man disappeared. Like one coming out through foggy dreams to find the morning, she said, “Did you see that, Win?”

“—Pardon, Commander?” There was trepidation in the answering female voice.

Shrinking, Rebecca made no answer.

The minutes passed as they continued checking onboard systems. T-minus five minutes. Commander Capt. Boehme and pilot Lt. Tsuchi studied the data displays and control banks around them, reviewing the positions of overhead toggles. T-minus 5 seconds. Capt. Boehme giave the computer command and the three main engines below started with a mighty bang. The solid rocket boosters boomed to life. A slight vibration…. Gripping the arms of her seat, Rebecca tensed as the tower of pad B went slowly past the wraparound windows above. Then, accelerating with sickening force, bucking and twisting, the shuttle rolled, pitched, yawed into the once familiar east-northeast Gibraltar course.

Far away and below, from an observation deck on the ground, Sam Knightlinger shaded his eyes and watched the flashing white point of the STS, tethered to its pale yellow flame and billowing contrail, until it disappeared through distant skies.

Clean black space, with its mental and spiritual healing, Bo …. Get you some and bring it back in your eyes.

They were only 126 seconds into the flight and already 43 kilometers out. The orange flame of the eight booster separators engulfed the crew’s wraparound windows. Six seconds more—the boosters were gone, gravity sucked. The ride smoothed out but they did not relax. Watching the data displays, Boehme said, “Pressing to MECO.”

“Roger, Commander.” The thrust of excessive gravity prevented the pilot from glancing toward the captain. I hope you’re ready, Commander. Because the official line won’t save us now.

Feeling leaden, several times their normal weight, they were reaching for main engine cut off at orbital velocity.

The fuels in their external tank now expended, the orbiter pitched over, leveling off. There flowed blue curving earth out their windows. Rebecca’s heart filled at the sight. Aiko Tsuchi monitored the sequence as onboard computers disengaged their orbiter from the great external tank. Three red lights on the panel before the pilot went out. Now the orbital maneuvering system’s thrusters began firing for the final nudge into orbit. Heaviness fell away, as finally topping the orbit, they lightened to nothing.

The pair removed their helmets, and Rebecca saw Tsuchi’s face slightly flattened, her ponytail drifting out like strands of black seaweed. With a pang of joy, she experienced anew the sensation of weightlessness. But the buoyant emotion was instantly quelled, as the specter of Win Bishop’s body—afloat against fathomless blackness, his suit deflated—flashed into her mind.

Zero gravity. Major Winston Bishop, mission commander, was preparing to leave the orbiter to work on its robotic arm. The arm had malfunctioned just as they were extending it to retrieve one of the European Space agency’s orbiting bio-labs.

I’ll have that thing operational in no time, Bo.

They were suited and helmeted, floating on opposite sides of the sealed airlock hatch. Monitor me. And don’t forget, the sound of your larynx vibrating in my helmet excites me.

She smiled, aware of the broad grin behind his obscuring faceplate. Phooey. Think I’ll report you.

Winston Bishop chuckled. Phooey? Better watch that language. I guess commanding that last mission went to your head. You forgot how to take orders, pilot.

Rebecca said, Orders? Phooey.

She heard his answering chuckle. All good-natured, professional. Everything decent and orderly. The need for order out here was obvious. Bishop never lost that sense, was confident and reassuring under pressure. Yet, watching him check out a zero-torque drill, she recalled a time when he betrayed fear—in a flippant remark comparing black holes to dark spots in the psyche. Bottomless pits, right there in the soul. (Grin.)

His back to her, Bishop was ready to exit the airlock.

Win! She called it out. I’ve got an impression—you should use the MMU!

The manned mobility unit, a backpack with encircling arms and powered by nitrogen thrusters, was something Bishop habitually refused when he had work that kept him in close range of the shuttle.

You can burn back here faster if anything goes wrong.

He turned about slowly. Funny, a moment ago I felt the same thing…. But you know I prefer the tether.

Tsuchi and Boehme had achieved a circular orbit, 210 kilometers out, when Rebecca unstrapped to come away from her seat. Moving the members of her body in unison, feet in the air and her short brassy hair fluffed out, she worked compulsively, loading the computers with instructions. To Tsuchi’s discomfort, she said nothing as she began work.

Transporting a supply module, they were on target for the mission to NASA’s “beehive,” its network of floating stations and staging point for moon, geosynchronous, and libration flights. Tsuchi unstrapped and glanced at the taciturn commander, thinking, Unnerving, cold as Pluto in here. She slid to the after flightdeck to oversee the slow opening of the great payload bay doors. It was still a revelation to her, this view of shimmering azure atmosphere against blue-black space. The calm of infinity set her spirit strumming. Staring out, she mused on the peculiar notion, which some astronauts claim, that space carries promptings and peace unmuddied by earth’s dense atmosphere. What did it mean?

She turned back to begin checking vehicular response, but found Capt. Boehme usurping thatis job.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

She arced into mid-deck to see if the equipment was secure. In the cabin she did a double-take on discovering a water drop, the size of an orange, forming on one side of the chlorination valve. If it grew too large, its molecular attractions might be disturbed enough to break. Dispersed water droplets, floating willy-nilly about in the craft, might short out onboard electronic systems. She spun away and the movement nauseated her.

Commander. She called weakly from the opening between compartments.

Shaking off her preoccupation, Rebecca turned slowly. What is it, Aiko?

There’s a water ball in here. Her voice quavered with nausea. Maybe we should contact our controller? She knew it a measure of her own lack of confidence in this mission with her commander.

Rebecca slid past her to examine the globoid seepage on the valve. Already as big as a grapefruit. Boehme glanced at the toolkit secure among the equipment and Tsuchi, following her gaze, reached for it. What do you need? She surveyed the neat array of zero-torque tools.

Seven and W. Nausea gone? Rebecca drifted back to let her in. Pointing to the opening, she said, Lock seven into the ratchet of W and insert it there. When you’re tightly engaged, turn it maybe ninety degrees—right.

Aiko did as instructed, and the seepage stopped. Better gather that with something, said Rebecca as she turned toward the flight deck.

Tsuchi got a towel out of the tiny locker and gingerly soaked up the water. When she re-entered the cockpit, Boehme was strapped in and studying earth through the wraparound windows. Lt. Tsuchi secured herself, and, following a few practice burns, settled the orbiter back into the proper attitude for the remainder of the climb.

Staring at the earth just before sunset, Rebecca’s gaze was caught by smoking Mount Etna. A prickly infilling of the glands about her eyes … the quick compression of her emotional heart…. She held her breath as the sun sank behind them.

Win Bishop opened the outer hatch, secured himself to a line, and slowly drifted for the robotic arm.

Where’s my chatter? She heard him ask it whenre she floated beyondhind the airlock hatch. The feeling ofimpression causing her apprehension stayedcontinued with her, even as the view beneath the open cargo bay doors stunned her anew with its display of the blue beauty of space curving beyond. You look pretty good out there. What-a-view.

Lifting out of the bay, he passed out along the mantis-like arm. Then he paused, apparently looking at the planet.

Rebecca glanced at the MMUs attached to the bulkhead outside the airlock. He always claimed that the unit hampered his movements. She watched him reach for a tool floating tethered at his side. Then she heard him gasp.

Oxygen pressure?! A malfunctioning regulator would deplete his suit pressure, boiling his blood. He made a small gesture. Her arm went out to open the hatch, but her limbs were numbing. Bumping the bulkhead she negotiated the airlock…. Scarcely she heard the soft pfff in her helmet … saw his limbs blossom out.

She backed into the MMU and managed to release it. Fumbling to activate the nitrogen jet she felt it would never start, yet it fired and began propelling her towards him. Drawing up, she saw him outspread in the limp suit, floating like a flower on water. She turned for an instant. Smoking Mount Etna, on distant earth, met her bewildered gaze.

It’s dark, Commander, urged the pilot still strapped in beside her. Their cabin lights were out but the data displays glowed. Then, Look! A night flight!

Through the wraparound windows Aiko and Boehme watched the fire of rockets from earth, winking, emerging through the atmosphere.

Wonder whose? said the pilot as the light moved in the blackness of earth’s shadowed bottom until it went out in the east. Bet it’s a Fly-back F-1. That looked like the fire of SSMEs.

The radio light came on in the panel. Rebecca flipped a switch, acknowledging.

Sam here, came the friendly voice from earth. How you doin’?

The voice gave her a welcome rush of inner sights: Good humored dark eyes, sea breezes, red wine under palms.

Pretty good here, Sam. Had a leak in the chlorinator valve. Lt. Tsuchi corrected it. We’ve got lights out and are cruising in the dark at about 300km altitude. I see Delphinus—I think it is—outside my window, and in the east we just had unidentified rocket fire. Know whose? Over.

That would be China with spare parts for Island 2. You skipped by that valve leak pretty fast, babe. Care to tell yo’pappy what happened?

Boehme chuckled and asked Tsuchi to fill him in.

Then the director of crew-op came back, saying, Uh—We have a complication with one of ESA’s communications satellites…. Already she felt her heart beating as he continued. You may be uneasy … I understand, Bo, but there’s no one else around and I know you can handle it. Why not give Aiko her head on this one?

Rebecca was silent. Then she acknowledged, and his briefing followed. Capt. Boehme signed off and, ignoring Sam’s advice, ordered the pilot to turn on the overhead and start work on the coordinates. The commander unstrapped to prepare for extravehicular activity. She did not want a crewmember doing this walk.

Working on the coordinates, Lt. Tsuchi said with deceptive evenness, I’d like to do that EVA, commander. But the other continued mid-deck. Capt. Boehme…. Now Aiko spoke a note of warning: I’d be alone here, if anything … happened.

It was manipulative but it worked.

Adrift in the cabin Rebecca swung about slowly, staring at her, vaguely reliving the nightmare of isolation…. Of traveling high above earth, repairing the robot arm—her own commander’s body strapped to his seat in the cockpit. She fought the futility of trying to save either of them from her fears. Life had moved on, leaving both Win Bishop and her personal experience in some place she kept trying to call the past.

The craft and its lone space walker were in sunlight, the earth above glowing and milky white. Boehme watched Tsuchi on a display as the other ghosted toward the target; wearing the MMU and trailing a thin cloud of ice crystals.

It’s a miracle out here, came Aiko’s murmur inside Rebecca’s helmet. Wearing the suit was a precaution taken in case she was needed out there.

Your suit systems, camera, and MMU are all reading fine, pilot.

Hovering near the spherical satellite, Aiko did not respond. Then, Looks like part of quadrants two and three have been strafed by dust or something. Did you just see some of its particles disperse?

Boehme glanced reflexively at the neighboring monitor. Negative. I was watching you, not your pictures. Anything else?

The rest of the satellite appears operable, but maybe these pix’ll show something. Aiko said, this coming around the sphereoid into full view of the shuttle’s monitoring camera.

OK, c’mon back and I’ll send the data to Sam.

But Tsuchi had stopped near the satellite. Roger, that. But she did not move.

C’mon.

I can’t. The control’s disengaged.

Well, keep trying. I’m coming out.

Capt. Boehme unstrapped and slid to the airlock.

Outside she donned an MMU, ignited the tiny rockets, and glided past the supply module in the bay. Coming up ton the stranded pilot, reversing rockets, she saw Aiko fiddling with the control on an arm of the unit. Rebecca reached to grasp the stick and felt it slip loosely from side to side. She started removing the housing, but stopped.

She seemed poised, as though listening. With Tsuchi wondering.

Go out! Quickly! I’ll push you.

She grabbed the arm of the unit and began propelling her around the satellite. She circled widely, doubling their distance to the shuttle.

Aiko felt her fear coming true: Boehme was dangerously unstable.

Commander, why are we going away from the orbiter?!

Although seeming a void of motionless peace, orbital space is pocked with moving particles unchecked by friction, bits of debris and junk moving at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour. Before Rebecca could answer, a blinding flash blossomed where the satellite had been, sending silent reflecting radiance and fragments out through the corridor between spacewalkers and aircraft. In its rush of light their eyes were momently blinded.

Aiko breathed out her wonderment in silence. Was this it—the intuition?

How did you know, Commander?

The pressurized suit hid the other’s shrug.

I knew.

The STS was soft-docking at the beehive. Sunlight glinted off banks of solar arrays as they passed into the docking sphere of aone cylindrical station. The station spun slowly about its axis to provide .1 G—just enough gravity to keep coffee in cups and people in touch with the floor. The two astronauts checked in at the nearly empty flight desk to file their reports. On duty the dark young man with an engaged glance looked at the transcripts on the display. He blurted out an expletive when he came to exclaimed over the mishap. Meteoroid or space junk hits weren’t unknown, but they were rare.

“Your ID says you’re rated for inter-orbital flight, Capt. Boehme,” said the man as he turned away from the monitor. “We’ve got an unscheduled trip to Earth Island, if you’re interested. If you’re too tired, I’ll see who else I can scrounge up.”

Rebecca turned to Aiko. “Want to pick up a pile of hours in the IOTV?”

The other’s face lit up in the affirmative, emphasizing her beautiful horizontal features. She had yet to visit the elegant celestial city of space.

The young man glanced at the UT clock. “Give you an hour to rest up, then I’ve got to get Dr. Gas on the sling.”

“Dr. Gas?” asked Tsuchi.

“The Very Great Architect of the Islands hisself.” He looked down his nose at them, nostrils flaring.

“His self,” laughed Rebecca. To Tsuchi she added, “I don’t think he likes my ideas—if that’s the word for them.”

“On what?”

“Space intuition.”

“Is it ESP?”

“May be. But I don’t call it that because it mixes it up with something else. It is discernment and extra to the senses yet completely relevant to them. Anyway, I have no scientific curiosity about it anymore.” She said softly as though to herself, “Wish I hadn’t written that paper.”

“Ride should be interesting, then,” the amused young man said with a smile. “They’re throwing ‘luncheon’ for him the day after tomorrow. Better grab a sandwich and get some rest.” He gestured toward the hatch, which led through compartments to the snack area, “Soy sloppy joes today!”

Aiko giggled as they stepped lightly through the hatch. “Yummy.”

“Yummy?—soy sloppy joes?”

“Not them.” She looked back, flashing a smile over her shoulder at the man behind the desk.

They rocketed through the flashing radioactive Van Allen belt in the inter-orbital transport vehicle. Rebecca, her hair fluffed out, and Aiko, whose ponytail drifted, were at the consoles; the astrophysicist strapped in behind them. His blond hair always closely cropped—warding the foolishness of zero gravity—astute, self-assured, Dr. Chaunce Ardley listened with polite attention as Tsuchi described the destruction of ESA’s satellite by the meteoroid.

Remarkable. But Capt. Boehme is a remarkable woman. I was in flight-com the day you made your heroic deorbit. His manner was lightly ironic, his voice smooth as satin.

Feeling heat rise in her face, Rebecca turned back to the panel.

Ardley continued. Really, how did you know you and the lieutenant were in danger?

Skimming the data displays, her back still to him, she wanted to say, “The Easter Bunny told me.” But lightly she said, Rather not say.

He moved smoothly on. Now you have piqued my curiosity of course. I’ve heard of space intuition, but we haven’t studied it yet … not seriously. Until we do—it does not exist. You swim, Capt. Boehme.

Mmm. She nodded.

Good. He lit a gold-colored cigarette, murmuring, It’ll filter out OK. You don’t mind do you?… We’ll go swimming at the Lunar Club. You’ll come, too, Lieutenant.

Tsuchi laughed, recognizing the afterthought. No thanks, got to do my nails.

His eyes steeped in cigarette smoke, the physicist smiled.

The great mottled dome of the moon was out their windows on the left. In time a speck of light to the right began steadily growing. Later, as they drew near, it outshone the constellations, a shining ringgreat wheel—full of life. This immensegreat colony, held in place by the gravity of heavenly bodies, swung slowly, majestically, like a great spoked wheel in space. The vast mirrors, reflecting its image above, provided solar light and energy.

Tsuchi pointed out a shield of rock—slag from the furnace that was located ten km south of the torus. Fly past the furnace and hover, commanded Ardley. We’ll watch those mass-catchers dock.

Out the window they saw two massive, grid-covered Kevlar bags, full of moon rock, preparing to dock at the furnace. Glistening clumps of raw ore, floating in space, awaited the refining process that would extract glass, iron, titanium, magnesium, aluminum, all for use in building Island 2. Stacks of refined sheet metals, waiting for a tow to the fabrications sphere, were suspended beyond the glowing furnace.

We’ve just begun coating the new island with aluminum extracted from that ore. Another year and we’ll have our second self-supporting colony. Rocket up to it, will you Capt. Boehme.

She turned to Aiko. Take us on through Earth Island’s spokes, close to the torus, and you’ll get a glimpse into it before we go on to the fabrications sphere.

Tsuchi inverted the vehicle and flew across the secondary mirrors and louvered shields covering the outer surface of the vast torus. Through the slanted shields she saw green and yellow fields, fountains, sheep grazing. A tiny gasp escaped her lips and she glanced at Ardley.

He smiled.

Gerard O’Neill and his students designed the colony decades ago. My uncle was one of those students, and he inspired me. Invert again and you’ll see her new sister.

They drew slowly up past the fabrications sphere, above the hub of the torus. Further out they saw the skeletal structure of Island 2, the plastic-covered ribs of its torus, spokes, and hub revolving in space. Leading up to it from the fabrications sphere was a long vibrating hose. A conical vehicle attached and acting as a nozzle sprayed the skeletal torus with gleaming metal.

Ardley continued his smooth tutorial, saying, The sheet aluminum we saw beside the furnace is boiled to vapor and shot through the nozzle under pressure. It hardens instantly on the shell.

The two women murmured appropriately. It was not unexpected, and that such murmuring was his due.

Undressing for her swim, Rebecca wondered why she bothered with him. Ardley was attractive and repellent in the same glance. She tried picturing him as a down and out failure. She chuckled. Chaunce Ardley with slumping shoulders and fraying cuffs.

She stepped from the women’s lounge in a skimpy one-piece. Bright, laughing, sophisticated people clustered about the vast pool, solar bathing. Uh-oh…. Agoraphobia. Wrong turn. Better go back. It came swiftly to her that space was where she belonged—not society. But she could not have the first without that community. The two poles of her existence were In polarity was the holding together—and the struggle to part.

In silver boxer trunks, his physique tan and sleek, Ardley approached. “Care for a drink, Rebecca?”

Charming smile. He’s going to be nice. “Maybe a little chablis.” She followed to the bar.

They took their drinks to the edge of the pool, refreshening their feet in its pink waters. A stream of Chaunce’s friends and hangers-on came and went. Faint smiles crossed Rebecca’s features and vanished. A lull came and Ardley set down his glass.

“Don’t look so miserable, Rebecca.”

There was an embarrassed pause. She might have brought up her breakdown as an excuse … but she knew better. She was out of her zone—that was all.

He gave her a casual but sensual smile and squeezed her thigh before plunging into the rose-tinted waters. Burnished with red-gold hair, his body glistened up at her. Came an impulse to hurry away confusingly combined with a desire to stay and swim beside that attractive form. She sighed, downed her wine and stood uncertainly. He beckoned and she dove, meeting him under water.

Chaunce took her arm and pointed downward. She looked and saw the shell-strewn bottom. The two dove deeper and began plucking shells to carry away. They surfaced in a welter of pink bubbles and swam for the shady end of the pool. There they lined up their find according to species.

Delighted, she held up a yellow sunray Venus. “Imagine transporting all these from the planet!”

“My compliments.” He cocked his head in a mock bow.

She smiled. No modesty, false or otherwise, here.

Suddenly he slapped his neck, swearing in irritation. “I didn’t import that!”

“A mosquito!” Pure glee in her response. And happy pride.

“Don’t look so damned pleased. Some cow-brained joker has spoiled the paradisal softness of the place.”

Rebecca’s face flooded. She managed a weak smile. My cow-brained compliments. Shortly after the island’s christening she had brought in a few vials of various insects, pupae and larvae, on one of her supply flights. Finding the mosquitos thriving after her long absence prompted the joyous outburst. Now she fervently hoped that the predators she had planted, the spiders and damselflies, were doing as well.

Chaunce misread her flaming features, and made a curt apology. “Maybe they came on some plants—I hate seeing this perfection marred.”

Out of the memory of her sorrow, she asked, “Couldn’t there be purpose, a … sort of redeeming purpose … in imperfection?” She offered it with a tentative smile. His face darkened. He was going to retort, but impulsively she slipped beneath the mild waters.

Piqued, he pursued. But as they swam she thought of Sam and found herself suddenly weary of Ardley, bone-tired as well. They surfaced, and, pleading exhaustion after the grueling flights of the past two days, she excused herself. He was rebuffed, irked, but, before she had gathered her things, was receiving the attentions of another.

Aiko was out. Rebecca stood on the balcony, gazing across the park. Path lights were on, enhancing the artificial night. The ring of secondary mirrors in space, just above the residential level, were turned so that solar light from the giant mirror was deflected. The still air was apple-blossom scented. It was late, not many were stirring. One couple was descending the stairs leading to a suite among the larger terraced apartments on her left. Familiar—the long dark hair of the woman…. Lamplight from the landing cast a glow on the man’s blond head. Hand in hand, Aiko and Chaunce Ardley slipped into the suite.

That’s that.

Casual sex always seemed incongruous, anyway. To find the intimate places and call forth pleasure, hands had to be not just any hands, but hands attached to a body full of a particular soul. It might have been Win Bishop…. —The MMU probably would not have saved him anyway…. The sadness again.

But now thoughts of Sam Knightlinger’s kindness and friendly smile surfaced. Musing and wistful, she turned and went inside.

Troubled, Rebecca tossed on the daybed in the darkened room. She rolled on her side, her stomach, her back. Her conscience was uneasy … pestered. What is it!? —the mosquitos!

She sat up rubbing her brow. If the balance isn’t there … more pests than predators?…

She closed her eyes, frowned, lay back and plucked at the sheet. When will I learn discretion, cease careless presumption?

Morning, and she was preparing to visit space. It was close to noon when, suited and carrying her helmet for the walk, she entered the docking lobby. Without gravity here at the hub, Rebecca grabbed the rail, pressing her Velcro soles into the Velcro carpeting, moving slowly to the flight desk.

Hearing a commotion she turned from the woman at the desk to see a group step from the tube and gingerly enter the lobby. Fifteen or twenty suited tourists, carrying helmets and led by a young guide, came toward the desk. All were excited, laughing. The woman at the desk smiled at her.

EMU touring today. Vacationers want to walk in space.

In the docking area, Rebecca donned an MMU, fired it and did test maneuvers. Then she burned away, crossing over the torus where, below, the Lunar Club had its halcyon view of space. She glanced into the posh room far below where Dr. Ardley would soon be feted. Rebecca inverted and watched the slow revolution of the new Island, the brilliant aluminum drenching by the conical vehicle and hose from the fabrications sphere. Then, burning away, she headed into the deepness. Faintly flashing as she flew, cosmic particles darted across her retinas. Particles, particles, she mused, Everything is particles. People are particles. Gulfs and particles.

Now, thrusters off, floating in the cosmic atmosphere of stars, Rebecca saw the fulgent sun, a great star in the darkness of space. Beneath it hung the fragile half-planet earth—a fair, sapphire foot-stool. Opposite earth stood the moon with its bright white top, its bottom shaded and pocked green in the pale earthshine. All silent fragile spheres, every one. And surrounding them rode the monstrous, bright but navigable stellar network—devised, fused and piloted by a Mind and Force beyond human comprehension.

Reversing to a standstill, Rebecca felt herself caught in this divine snare of varying lights. She was organized stardust and soul, known through and through by the Pilot, drifting in the Pilot’s measureless sea of star particles. She was silent, tipping in the presence of Silence.

Now, lighter yet surer than touch, guidance pressed gently on her spirit.

And she was disquieted. Heart thumping, Rebecca Boehme ghosted back toward the distant islands where two great wheels turned slowly, solemnly, in space. As she flew, Rebecca noticed the MMU tourists in that distance, hovering like bees along one side of the protracted hose. The nozzle vehicle was spraying the hull of the new torus in bright aluminum.

Then, even as she burned toward them. Then. Vapor under tremendous pressure burst from the hose near its couplings. Rebecca gasped as the wild white gas blew away the group that had gathered so close—a soundless explosion sending its members spinning wildly out. Out out into the fathomless ocean of space.

She chose one and fired after it but, unable to match the speed of the tiny sliver vanishing far ahead, she turned about searching for others. Too late. They were all shot out into black space on a ride eternal.

Her own oxygen pressure was almost gone. Stiff with anguish, she headed for the docking area. The blow of gas had ceased, its delivery hose empty, gaping, eerily afloat. Approaching the docks, she saw a score of vehicles preparing to rocket away on a hopeless quest.

At Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 14, Sam Knightlinger left control and walked rapidly down the hall to his office. He went to the window and stood staring out at the canal basin where two dozen external tanks sat on barges, waiting to be towed to one of the vehicle assembly buildings. He smoothed his moustache and brushed absently through the wiry hair at his temples. News of the tragedy at Earth Island had just come down. He pictured her serious features, those still hazel eyes. Sam Knightlinger drummed his fingers on the window frame.

C’mon, kid. Get your butt back on this planet.

Draped over the foamed-in couch, clutching some pillows, Rebecca stared vacantly. Aiko was out. It was almost time to rocket back to the beehive and then on to Earth, but she lay staring without seeing the ponytail palm beneath a skylight in a high curve of the foamed-in white wall. Her eyes were puffy, a tear stood on her lash. She felt the hand of sorrow hovering, poised to push down on her again.

An electronic monotone voice hummed into the quiet, announcing visitors. Tiny, lucent holo-images of Lt. Tsuchi and Chaunce Ardley were displayed in a curve of the room. Rebecca spoke, the door slid open. She sat up, slowly, fluffing her short hair withas nervous fingers.

“The rescue vehicles are back,” said Tsuchi. “We’ll never see those tourists again.”

Still wearing the silver textelite suit he had been feted in, Dr. Ardley wore a grim preoccupied expression. Feeling Rebecca’s gaze on him, he exerted himself to smile and sit down beside her on the couch. She wondered idly what he was doing here: He would surely be staying to begin at least the appearance of an investigation.

“You’re okay aren’t you, Rebecca?” The show of concern grated falsely on her. She looked at him, quietly. Restive, he stood and walked the small space. Aiko hesitated, looking from one to the other, then slid onto a couch opposite Rebecca. No one spoke.

Rebecca’s statement surfaced into the silence: “You didn’t do adequate stress tests on that hose?… Or there was something else … something neglected.”

Chaunce stopped, looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Star knowledge again, Rebecca?”

He continued pacing. Of course he truly had misjudged it. But the engineers should have been more vigilant. The technicians could have caught the error. The damned tour group shouldn’t have been up against it.

He glanced smiling at Lt. Tsuchi, ignoring her bewilderment, then said to Rebecca, “I wouldn’t spread that around…. The perception, or question even, of your fitness for space…. There is no evidence on which to base those false accusations.”

“Not yet.” Pressing ahead you imagine cosmic dread won’t bring you downward into its orbit. —The abyss of light unfathomable. Unfathomable of what Is.

He looked away, relieved that he had taken the trouble to change the data. His holo camera on the hose, as well as a score of other shortcuts…. The budget—the deadline—none of this had allowed for anything else.

“You’ll be wanting to get back to Kennedy,” he said smoothly, smiling at Lt. Tsuchi’s confusion. “Or, you can visit a while longer with me. Rebecca is quite capable of the flight back.” He turned and left the tiny suite.

The onboard computers were programmed for reentry. Orbiting blue earth, tail-first and upside down, they awere pressure-suited and strapped in. Lt. Tsuchi fired the OMS engines for the tug needed to slow the craft into elliptical orbit. The radio light came on. Rebecca flipped the switch. Boehme, she said.

Sam here. How’s it going? Ready to deorbit?

Affirmative…. Dr. Ardley’s negligence was responsible for the accident at Earth Island.

There was silence in her helmet. She waited. Then he said, He has already radioed and said you might suggest something like that.

No proof, Sam. That I know.

Again there was silence.

It won’t hold up, Rebecca.

I’m aware of that.

So what are you going to do?

Nothing. That is, I’ve already done it in telling him. And you.

—Right. Well, don’t worry, there will be an investigation. You coming in now?

Want me in?

God, yes.

She detected the presence of his lopsided sexy grin.

I’ve got the runway down here carpeted in red.

Got wine?

Everything, babe.

Sam Knightlinger left control and strode down the hall. On his way out to the runway he pictured peace in Rebecca’s eyes, before hurrying on to the rest of her.

Food for Thought

Before the first launch of Columbia, when the prototype of the space shuttle was gliding toward feasibility, NASA’S program inspired me to begin a short story. I wrote the first draft before the first launch in the late ‘70s, using research based on Apollo missions and then waited for what the shuttle astronauts’ experience would make available to redraft the story for details. But the basic story was always the same. It had two alternative endings, one featuring confession/repentance, the other as you see here. The Challenger calamity made new hope for my ambition of publication, as did that of Columbia in 2003, but success for this story did not piggy-back on these tragedies. Along the way, Col. James Irwin read and suggested a couple ways to make the EVA more real based on his moon-mission Apollo flights and walks. The program closes, the hardware will be found in museums. So the story may not be vetted unless by a publication interested in themes of stewardship toward the divine and creation.

About the Author

S. Dorman earned a master of humanities degree from the California State University system, and is a sub-creative writer. One example is the independently published Fantastic Travelogue: Mark Twain and C.S. Lewis Talk Things over in The Hereafter, begun as a project for the thesis paper. (An essay from this paper was published in Extrapolation, Spring 2007.) Other SF includes Gott’im’s Monster 1808; Five Points Akropolis, and SiXPointz HiTopOlis. Her current work in progress, DuOpolis, is the final third of this SF series.

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A Matter of Mass by Floris M. Kleijne

A MATTER OF MASS

Floris M. Kleijne

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…” Father Zio sighed. “It’s been thirteen years since my last IRL confession.”

Behind the lattice, Bishop Otis shifted in his seat.

“But—” the Bishop said. He paused before continuing: “And how long has it been since your last online confession?”

“A week, Father. But it’s not the same. It’s not.”

“Go on, my son.”

“I have harbored unkind thoughts at times, about members of my flock. I have had lustful thoughts at times.” Father Zio smiled quietly to himself. Mr. Dooley’s dramatic antics of feigned ecstasy at every Mass were enough to bring unkind thoughts to the holiest of minds, never mind his own flawed, rehabilitated soul. As for Mrs. Ocura’s cleavage… Let’s just say some things were worth a couple of Hail Mary’s.

“Go on, my son.”

The Bishop’s prompt made him realize he was marking time with these minor sins, postponing the inevitable, while he knew exactly what he should be confessing instead. Father Zio believed in confession, needed the cleansing of his soul. But it was unfortunate, to say the least, that Bishop Otis was the one taking it. No matter. No sense delaying any longer.

“I have been prideful. I have defied the wishes of the Holy Church.” There. That would put an end to any doubt Bishop Otis might still have had. “I have defied… you, Father.”

From behind the lattice came the sound of indrawn breath, followed by a long silence. Then:

“How so, my son?”

SciPhiSeperator

The week before, Bishop Otis had introduced Father Zio to his replacement.

Admittedly, Andrew had been convincing. Except for an almost subliminal hum when it stood up from its seat, the new priest could have passed for human in any gathering. They had spent fifteen minutes arguing doctrine, and Andrew’s command of Scripture and religious philosophy had been impressive to the point of intimidation.

“I’ll leave you two to discuss the practicalities.” Its voice carried perfect timbres of kindness and self-effacing respect. Zio had no doubt it could cast its voice to the proper tone for any occasion. “If you need me, I’ll be on board the Pius VI.” The episcopal vessel was moored off air lock 42, waiting to take the Bishop back to the diocese. The Bishop and, if the Most Reverend had his way, Zio as well.

“Yes, thank you, Andrew.”

The door between Zio’s chambers and corridor K hissed closed. Bishop Otis was still standing behind the plain sofa where Father Andrew had sat, his hands hidden in the wide sleeves of his purple cassock, smiling benignly as if bestowing a blessing on the departed priest. Father Zio rounded on the Bishop, but his many outraged questions battered him into silence. The Bishop neatly stepped into the opening.

“So, Father, do you feel ready to start your life after penance?”

So that was how he wanted to play it. This new Bishop was very different from his late predecessor, Bishop Armanez. But Father Zio wasn’t ready—or willing—-to talk around the elephant in the room.

“A robot? You’d replace me with a robot, Most Reverend?”

“The Holy See has coined the term Paracreational Shepherd. But yes, a robot, if you will.” The benign smile on the Bishop’s face didn’t fool Zio for a moment.

“No.” Father Zio’s mind teemed with objections, arguments, outraged exclamations, but the single negation was all he could utter.

“My son, do you realize what the diocese is offering you? Absolution, the end to your penance, an easy, planet-side congregation close to Earth. God willing, a congregation on Earth itself, when it comes available. To be absolved of the sins in your past, Zio. Isn’t that what you want?”

The sins in his past. Father Zio would never have expected it to be put so bluntly. Things must have changed in the Mother Church while he tended this tiny backwater parish. Or maybe it was just this new Bishop who preferred a mundane, speak-your-mind approach that would have been considered shockingly inappropriate when Father Zio was first ordained.

He had been just Zio when he found Christ in prison, doing hard time for a wide range of cybercrimes. The Church had accepted him, taught him, ordained him, but hadn’t readily forgiven him. In the dark recesses of his mind, he still wondered sometimes how much of their outrage had been about the innocent victims he had made, and how much about the moneys he had liberated from various hidden Vatican Bank accounts. It didn’t really matter though: he considered his service on dilapidated Outpost Psi fair penance for the deaths he had caused.

“Most Reverend, with all due respect, that is not the point. I’m sure Father Andrew was easy to replicate and cheap to ship, but that doesn’t make him a priest! How can a robot ever serve a congregation? How can a robot commune with the Holy Trinity? Will the Diocese train monkeys next? Or is it now the position of the Church that robots possess a soul?”

Bishop Otis actually flinched for a second, but he quickly recovered into icy fury.

“It seems you read Her Holiness’s encyclicals with less attention than you should, Father Zio.”

Zio racked his brain. There had been upheaval at an almost Galactic level over the last papal missive. The accepted interpretation of the encyclical was that Pia IV wished to open the Church to alien intelligences. But reviewing the text in his head, Zio realized that the exact wording could as easily be made applicable to artificial intelligences—to robots.

“Mea culpa.” He did not trust himself to say anything else.

“Te absolvo.” The Bishop absently waved a blessing at his priest. “This is an opportunity for you, Zio; I would have expected you to see that. You’re not getting any younger, and frankly, these… incidents in the last months…”

Not that again.

There had been two incidents, two. And both had been a result of the ill-maintained AG systems on Psi. It seemed that anything might cause a malfunction these days, from turning on too many appliances at once, to slamming the light panel too forcefully. First time the AG faltered, Father Zio had been pouring the sacramental wine. The fumes had first stained and nauseated his floating congregation, and then burst into a spectacular fireball above the altar as the candles ignited the vaporized alcohol. Except some charring of the altar cloth, and a couple of singed eyebrows, the damage had been limited. The second time, a ball of holy water had drifted up through the church. Letting his parishioners plunge their hands into it as they entered had admittedly been ill-advised, however practical it had seemed at the time: the scattered smaller and smaller droplets had splashed all over the church module when gravity returned.

Holding these against him was a stretch. Using them as proof of his senile incompetence infuriated Father Zio.

“With all due respect, Most Reverend, I still say No. My congregation needs a real priest, a human priest, one with a soul; not some artificial collection of rote liturgy and pre-packaged responses. It may not be a large parish by your standards, they may number less than a percent of the population here, but these are fourteen immortal souls you’re playing with.”

That, finally, got a rise out of the Bishop. He jerked his right hand free and raised it.

“Careful, Father. An unkind ear might think you’re contradicting Her Holiness. And frankly, it is not your place to refuse or accept. This is the wish of your Church. It is your place to meekly comply!”

That was it. The threat of heresy, and the demand for obedience. And while he believed with all his heart and soul that this was dangerous to the life eternal of his flock, he had sworn to serve the Church. No sense arguing any longer.

Sense had never been his strong suit, though.

SciPhiSeperator

Father Zio had to admit that the robot performed remarkably well. He considered himself a good priest, a master of liturgy, but Andrew was something else entirely. Despite himself, Zio, felt himself being swept along in the rhythms of the service, participating in the congregational responses, carried aloft on the prayers. He had to remind himself that this was artificial, an automated performance honed to perfection, his own sense of the Divine a conditioned response rather than a real effect of this canned Mass. Even the utilitarian metal interior of the small module took on a sepulchral reverence under the slow echoes of the robot’s voice.

He fingered the object in his cassock pocket.

From his seat to the side of the altar, he could see that the members of his flock—no, Andrew’s now—were taken in by the performance, as moved now by the robot’s Mass as they had been by his own farewell sermon. Mr. Dooley was making as much of a fool of himself as always, swaying from side to side with eyes closed, and Mrs. Ocura tried and failed to get the robot’s attention. The others were… enraptured, even Bishop Otis. Carried on the waves of Father Andrew’s melodious reading, all faces displayed a concentrated attention Father Zio had never seen during his own services. Maybe he was a heretic for even thinking it, but such devotion through the service of a soulless automaton could only be the work of Satan, couldn’t it? He couldn’t remember whether Pia had invoked papal infallibility in her encyclical, but everything he saw, everything he felt about this mockery of Mass, told him she couldn’t have. In his mind’s eye, he could see the souls of his flock blackening as they were swept away by the ministrations of this false idol.

This travesty had to stop.

“The body of Christ.” Anatolyev, the station’s third engineer, accepted the host on his extended tongue. Petr was a pious and honest member of the congregation. It always gave Father Zio hope to see such a hard scientist demonstrate such faith.

Not yet.

Next in line, Mrs. Ocura knelt for her Holy Communion. Impervious to her wiles, the robot intoned “The body of Christ” again, its voice pleasing and melodious even in this ritual phrase. The shuttle pilot was flirtatious and possibly adulterous, but essentially harmless.

Not yet.

Behind her was Mr. Dooley, already shivering in anticipation. Father Zio had tried to find patience in his heart for the old gas miner, but it was hard. His pious ecstasy was too obviously feigned, his regular confessions too loudly self-righteous if not altogether fictitious.

Mrs. Ocura rose sinuously to her feet and stepped to the side to make her way back to her seat. Mr. Dooley rushed to take her place, dropping to his knees with bent head like a caricature of penitence. His deep sigh was audible all through the church module as he raised his head to accept the host.

Now.

Zio pressed the button in his pocket.

A slight stutter marred Father Andrew’s movements. It recovered quickly, but its immaculate performance had lost its perfection. Zio smiled through his guilt.

“The bod—”

Confusion broke through Mr. Dooley’s serene mask. The robot stood frozen, host extended, face still.

“The bod—”

This time, the interrupted word was followed by a brief burst of static. No one in the congregation could mistake Father Andrew for a human any longer. Its face contorted in a rapid-fire sequence of expressions as its operating system fought the Trojan which Father Zio had uploaded the night before.

It had been an easy hack, really. Access is ninety percent of hacking, he used to say, and the robot had a maintenance port in the back of the head, right under the hairline, as well as a wide-open RC module. Making the modifications to freeze the Father mid-mass had been no effort at all.

“Bod—”

“Father?” Mr. Dooley got to his feet and extended a hesitant hand towards the stalled automaton.

And perhaps he should have stopped there. Judging by the outrage on the faces in the congregation, this was enough: they would never accept his replacement now, insist on his staying on. Perhaps this was enough. But the final insult had come once he had accessed the OS and called up the sysinfo.

Father Andrew was a modified entertainment model.

He had been replaced by Crooner 3.2.

Even though it had been enough to convince his flock, even if he’d had a second button to stop this, the Church deserved the embarrassment. And his great-grandfather’s collection of late twentieth century classical music had provided the perfect finishing touch.

“—body down to the ground,” Father Andrew suddenly sang as Father Zio’s Trojan broke through the final lines of defense. The robot struck a pose, and slid into a smooth, rapid disco jive, scattering hosts.

“Let’s dance, let’s shout, shout, shake your body down to the ground!”

The parishioners got to their feet as Mr. Dooley recoiled. Scattered shouts of indignant fury accompanied the crowd to the double doors. Mrs. Ocura slammed the panel, causing the lights to flicker even as the doors sighed open.

And while his parishioners, without missing a beat, clawed their way through the open doors and floated into the hallway, and Bishop Otis attempted to air-swim down the aisle towards the altar, Father Zio assumed a relaxed pose some distance above his seat, and watched in contentment as Father Andrew attempted to moonwalk on thin air.

SciPhiSeperator

Father Zio accepted his penance, not because he deserved it—though he believed he did—but because his penance and his purpose coincided. He thought Bishop Otis suspected as much, but faced with a choice between leaving Psi Parish unshepherded, assuming the local priesthood himself, and reinstating Zio, the Bishop probably didn’t think he had much of a choice at all.

The Hail Mary’s and Lord’s Prayers, though, he would double on his own account, for while he believed he had done the right thing, it had been disrespectful and disobedient. He would pray, and he would make more of an effort to inspire and raise the spirits of his flock; the robot had at least given him that much more motivation.

“Te absolvo,” the Bishop said behind the lattice, with a hint of reluctance.

“Thank you, Most Reverend,” he whispered getting up. “And God bless you.”

SciPhiSeperator

Bishop Otis stayed seated in the confessional for a few more minutes, eyes closed, in apparent meditation. Then he stood up, with an almost subliminal hum.

Food for Thought

With artificial intelligence becoming more of a reality almost by the month, cognitive skills and abilities are well within reach of the constructed mind. Headway has even been made into the computer-generated appreciation of beauty. But how about creativity? Emotion?

Faith?

What if an artificial mind can be created such that it can quote Scripture, take confession, perform Mass; pass a religious Turing test, if you will? Can a human congregation be served by AI clergy? And if the believers cannot tell the difference, is their Holy Communion then real, even if it’s delivered… by a robot?

About the Author

Floris M. Kleijne is the award-winning author of the SF novelette “Meeting the Sculptor” (Writers of the Future Award, 2005) among more than fifteen published science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories. His fiction has been translated into eight languages, including his native Dutch. He lives and writes in Amsterdam, with his wonderful wife, two cheerful sons, and thousands of books.

 

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