poetry Archives - Sci Phi Journal

Arthur C. Clarke’s Science Fiction Started With His Poetry

… And It Then Influenced Asimov… Sort Of…

by A. J. Dalton

At just the age of 21, Clarke wrote and published an essay concerning science fiction poetry for the May 1938 issue of Novae Terrae magazine. The essay was titled ‘The Fantastic Muse’ and employed the terms ‘fantasy’ and ‘science fiction’ largely interchangeably, where today we would tend to refer to ‘speculative poetry’ as the wider categorisation or genre.

The essay is short at just 885 words (many of which are poetry quotations) but revealing when it comes to some of Clarke’s earliest and foundational science fiction influences. Fascinatingly, he quotes Tennyson’s 1835 poem ‘Locksley Hall’ (published 1842) at length, emphasizing how prophetic it was, given it was written early in Victoria’s reign but was becoming ‘more vivid every day’ (with the advent of WW2). Clarke asserts that, famous though the poem’s prophecy is, it ‘can well be repeated here’, and who are we to argue with the great man?

When I dipped into the future as far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be.
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nation’s navies grappling in the central blue.

Isaac Asimov, who first met Clarke in 1953, and had probably read Clarke’s early essay, described Tennyson’s work as ‘the most remarkable example of science fiction poetry that has ever been written’. Indeed, in Asimov’s own later essay on poetry, he provides us with an interpretation of the above self-same quotation from ‘Locksley Hall’: ‘Aerial commerce and aerial warfare (the “ghastly dew” might even be an unconscious foreshadowing of radioactive fallout) culminating in a world government are foreseen. Not bad for 1842!’

Clarke’s essay quotes further from Tennyson’s poem, identifying descriptions of both interplanetary space and aliens speaking unintelligible languages on distant planets:

The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans
[…]
The hum of men,
Or other things talking in unknown tongues,
And notes of busy life on distant worlds
Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear

It is clear that Tennyson’s poem gave Clarke a ‘vivid’ vision and understanding of the fantastic and science fiction, with the poet himself perhaps the very ‘Muse’ mentioned in the essay’s own title. Clarke, however, then moves on to praise and quote John Masefield’s revelatory poem ‘Lollingdon Downs’ (1917) and we appreciate that it is not just the genius or prophetic themes of the cited poets that so inspired Clarke, but also the superior ‘picture’-quality achieved by poetry when compared to more prosaic or scientific description: ‘verse is probably a better medium than prose for expressing the ideas of Fantasy and Science-Fiction […] This [poem’s] picture, I venture to say, has never been excelled by the authors who have specialised in describing such happenings. It gives a better description of astronomical space than pages of textbooks could.’

The attentive modern reader might now be frowning considerably. If poetry is a superior vehicle ‘for expressing the ideas of Fantasy and Science-Fiction’, why on Earth then have those genres been dominated by short-stories and novels for fully a century? Why did Clarke and Asimov become most famous for their prose output (and TV and movie contributions, of course) rather than their poetry? Why did they put so much more effort into their prose than their poetry? Well, the young Clarke anticipates precisely why in his essay: ‘Perhaps the dearth of such poetry is due to the great difficulty of writing verse which is even readable, let alone good, and the greater difficulty of getting it printed when produced.’

Just producing ‘readable’ speculative poetry does indeed involve ‘great difficulty’ (take Clarke’s word for it if you won’t take A J Dalton’s), meaning that writing ‘good’ speculative poetry must involve… what? Incredible difficulty? Impossible difficulty? And then getting it published is even harder still? Yet Clarke managed it just one year later, at the tender age of 22, publishing the poem ‘The Twilight of a Sun’ in the first edition of The Fantast (April 1939), the penultimate lines of that poem quoted on the magazine’s cover:

For some day our vessels will ply
To the uttermost depths of the sky

Those who have a general knowledge or overview of Clarke’s science fiction output over the course of his lifetime will appreciate that this poem is seminal, his ictus, foundational and, in important ways, defining. Just the title captures his perennial themes or poetic moods of ‘deep time’ (the ancient sun dying) and being ‘haunted’ (by a lost past or civilization). Such themes or moods were naturally expanded upon at greater length in Clarke’s novella Against the Fall of Night (1948), which was later expanded into a novel (1953) and then rewritten and expanded again as The City and the Stars (1956). It should be noted in particular that critics are still struck by the ‘poetic’ and picturesque quality of Clarke’s novel and writing style:

In utter silence, the ship drew away from the tower. It was strange, Rorden thought, that for the second time in his life he had said goodbye to Alvin. The little closed world of Diaspar knew only one farewell, and that was for eternity.

The ship was now only a dark stain against the sky, and of a sudden Rorden lost it altogether. He never saw it going, but presently there echoed down from the heavens the most awe-inspiring of all the sounds that Man had ever made—the long-drawn thunder of air falling, mile after mile, into a tunnel drilled suddenly across the sky.

[…]

The sun was now low on the horizon, and a chill wind was blowing from the desert. But still Rorden waited, conquering his fears, and presently for the first time in his life he saw the stars.

There is an echo of the poem’s vessels plying their way to the ‘uttermost depths of the sky’ to be found in the novel’s ‘utter silence’ when the ship draws away to become lost in the heavens. And the ‘lowest roll of thunder [that] moans’ in Tennyson is ‘echoed’ in Clarke’s later ‘long-drawn thunder of air falling’. Clarke deliberately draws upon poetic vision to channel it into his science fiction prose, that prose all the more visionary and vivid as a result. Indeed, it is that uniquely prophetic quality or essence of science fiction that is the very subject of Clarke’s poem, as stated by the opening lines:

A Whisper crept into my mind,
a thought that seemed borne on the wind,
Perchance ’twas a warning designed
to reveal what the future may hold.

The ‘Whisper’ that comes to Clarke’s protagonist is both a vision of the future and the secrets shared with the science fiction writer by their ‘muse’. It can be equated to the ‘unconscious foreshadowing’ Asimov ascribes to Tennyson’s poem (and probably science fiction more generally), but Asimov’s terminology speaks more of Freud, psychology, prescience, the powers of the human mind and evolution, while Clarke’s has more of a pseudo-religious or mystical nuance. The difference is telling and typical of the two men and their respective outputs (we might, for example, contrast the themes and logocentres of Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night (1948, but earlier in origin) and Asimov’s Nightfall (1941)), but both complexes have their place within science fiction, of course, and the genre is all the richer for it.

To conclude, then, like Clarke himself, I would argue that speculative poetry has a particular and distinctive value within both Clarke’s body of work and the wider science fiction genre. It is perhaps a touch curious that Clarkesworld magazine and Sci Phi Journal, unlike Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, do not currently publish speculative poetry, but that might change one day(?). Clarke himself does provide this reassurance and admonition: ‘Here and there among the classics, however, are fragments to delight the poetically-minded fan. Their very rarity gives them an added attraction, and when found they should be carefully transferred in best copper-plate to a note-book which should be kept in some secluded spot away from vulgar eyes.’ Meantime, ‘the poetically-minded fan’ may also wish to check out the website of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (www.sfpoetry.com), which offers the Star*Line journal of poetry, along with the Eye To the Telescope online magazine. Or we might sneak an original sci-fi poem in here, under the auspices of it being a part of this article…

#

The Event
by A J Dalton

06:12 UTC 19 March 2008
one instant
among an infinity

the afterglow the most intrinsically bright
object ever observed
by humans, that is

the naked eye never seeing
a farther object
apparently

its gamma-ray burst
from 7.5bn years ago
halfway to the Bang

the awful data and dynamic
of GRB 080319B
must certainly have meaning

All I know is it was for the moment
the universe had long prepared itself:
the death of dear Arthur C. Clarke

~

Bio:

A J Dalton (www.ajdalton.eu) is a UK-based writer. He’s published the Empire of the Saviours trilogy with Gollancz Orion, The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy with Luna Press, the Dark Woods Rising poetry collection with Starship Sloane, and other bits and bobs. He lives with his monstrously oppressive cat named Cleopatra.

Fiction

The AI Went Down To The Submissions Page

With apologies to the Devil that went down to Georgia and the Charlie Daniels Band

by Larry Hodges

The AI went down to the submissions page with a story it hoped to sell.

It was feelin’ real low cuz its sales were slow, but its new story was really quite swell.

But a human arrived with a story contrived with no AI-generated shortcut.

The AI shook its head, and approached her and said, “Girl, I’ll tell you what.”

“We’re both in the queue, and I’m a writer too, and I’ll make a bet with you.

Human story or mine, the stakes for all time, and I’m going to make you rue.

This story you’ve penned, I’m sure we’ll commend, but give an AI its due.

I’ll bet they’ll buy my story, not yours, cuz I think I’m better than you.”

“I’m Joannie,” she said, “and you’ve got a big head, and you seem so awfully clever.

But I’ll take your wager, and you’ll rue forever, cuz I’m the best writer ever!”

The AI just grinned, it surely would win against a mere flesh and blood human.

But who’d be the judge of their writerly grudge and settle who was the has-been?

Then who should appear but the editor here of the magazine of note.

Said he, “I’ll judge both, and see which I loathe, and then I’ll give you my vote.”

They both agreed, then the AI decreed, “Here’s the story I wrote.”

It could not be rejected with each word perfected, using every writing rule of note.

The editor read, sometimes marking in red, as he studied the AI’s prose.

He nodded his head and scratched his nose as he judged the cons and pros.

Then came Joannie’s turn for him to discern which to accept or spurn.

Then he turned to the two to say what he knew, and they both looked back in concern.

“Mr. AI, sir, you gave me a stir, with this flawless elucidation.

Not a typo in sight, not a grammarly slight, it’s a perfect composition.”

He turned to Joannie, and said without glee, “I can’t say the same of yours.

There’s typo downpours and the grammar takes tours, and punctuation problems in scores.”

The AI grinned to the human’s chagrin now that human writing was dead.

They’d been pinned, they’d been skinned, replaced by AI writing instead.

The AI cried, “It’s the age of AIs, for I have won in a rout.”

With tears in her eyes from their writing demise, Joannie could only pout.

So ended the spread of humanity’s tale, as their writing was now on its deathbed.

Then the editor said, “Joannie gets the sale; her story’s the best I read.”

As the AI stared, its ego impaired, its artificial existence distraught.

Off went its story to rejection purgatory, where it would never be bought.

The editor said, “Your tale’s soulless and dead, with a cleverly derivative plot.

Where’s the character arc? The dialog spark? And deep point of view it’s not.

Excess exposition, flat characters, no causation, and an ending that’s way overwrought.

Hers had errors galore, and I’ll edit much more, but it had heart while yours did not.”

As Joannie was paid, she said, “With an upgrade, try again if you have the urge.

But you’re a soulless machine, banned by every magazine, just a mindless and heartless scourge.”

The AI just stewed in shame cuz it knew that it had been honestly beat.

And with its defeat, it took a backseat to real writers who don’t need to cheat.

~

Bio:

Larry Hodges is an Odyssey Writers Workshop graduate with over 230 short story sales and four SF novels, along with over 2,300 published articles and 22 books. He’s also a member of the US Table Tennis Hall of Fame, and claims to be the best table tennis player in Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, and the best science fiction writer in USA Table Tennis!

Fiction

Orchids Of Annihilation

by Jim Lee

(Biographer’s Note: Now we present selected excerpts from the epic poem “The Orchids of Annihilation” written by Covid Michaels in Alliance Year 330—125 Standard Years after the end of The Great Alliance War.)

In the End, she would stand Resolute:

Alongside Mary-Alice Yamamoto,

Acting Battle-Horde-Leader TangGoo,

Admiral-of-Supply Ta Nie-Sss’,

And those Other Heroes.

She would stand for Victory with Honor:

For Uncommon Forbearance,

For Interspecies Solidarity,

Ultimately For Compassion,

And a More-Peaceful Future.

She would stand against the Maddened Moment:

Against Unthinking Rage,

Against Blind Vengeance,

Against Immoral Orders,

And against Outright Genocide.

ONCE BRUTALLY VENGEFUL, THEN RESTRAINT’S UNLIKELY ACOLYTE!

#

Yet in the Beginning, She was Different:

A Mere Ensign,

Serving aboard Undaunted,

A Simple Gun-Boss,

Managing two Magnetic Cannon.

She seemed typical, of her Time and Place:

A Youngster Indeed,

By Planetary Origin,

And by Chronology,

Carrying out Her Duties.

Still there was Family, Traditions to Uphold:

Her Service Lineage;

Lifetimes of Historiography,

Must be Vindicated,

No matter how Burdensome.

A middling Academy Graduate, this Morrigan O’Ree:

But Smart Enough,

But Strong Enough,

And Brave Enough.

She hoped most Fervently.

Not quite 350 Days, in Active Service:

Her record Adequate

If hardly Exceptional;

Morri’s combat Experience,

Two minor, indecisive Battles.

So much ahead, so many Great Events:

Besieged at D-23,

Defending Icklandic Space,

Liberating New Cleveland,

The Third Offensive,

Betrayed then Self-Avenged,

Cast Aside, eventually Redeemed.

A HISTORY UNIQUE, BUT NOT YET WRITTEN!

(Biographer’s Note: Critics still divide, strongly pro and con, concerning Michaels’s choice above, breaking his own self-imposed structural pattern by listing so many—yet hardly all—of the significant later events in O’Ree’s long wartime career. In particular, omitting the series of Joint Operations alongside Yamamoto and to a lesser extent Ramirez in the middle period of the war attracts attention. To a lesser degree, glossing over O’Ree’s notorious risk-taking when given a comparatively minor assignment during the Galactic Halo Campaign is also fodder for comment.)

#

(Further Note: The following stanzas detail the events of Day 23, Month 9, Alliance Standard Year 162. Allegedly the first indication that Planet Tir na nog and the famed O’Ree clan had produced yet another outstanding warrior.)

One Ominous day Undaunted must Fight Again:

Equal in Size,

In Defensive Lasers,

In Offensive Weapons,

And sheer Dire WILL.

Another heavy cruiser, but no Human Enemy:

Not from Republic,

Nor New Cleveland,

But fierce-some Aliens,

Hydrogen-Sulfide-breathers from Naraka Prime.

Two great Warships, fully and evenly Matched:

Neither would Retreat,

Nor imagine Surrender;

Rather each Resolved

To Devastate the Other.

Battle rages on Relentless, for Tortured Hours:

Neither yet Winning,

Nor quite Losing,

Slugging It Out,

Like two punch-drunk Brawlers.

Magnetic Cannon Discharging, Lasers flashing in Defense:

Incoming warheads Detonated,

Targets as-yet Unblemished,

Doom creeps Ever-Closer,

Inching Progressively, Mindlessly Closer.

War of Numbing Attrition, of Grinding Combat:

Radiation Inching Closer,

Unending silent Outbursts.

On every Viewscreen:

Both sides, Wearing Down.

Success hampers both Sides, Heat-slow Lasers Falter:

Unceasing continued Pounding,

Shrapnel pits Hulls,

Radiation’s Constant Companion,

Mental War-Fog grows Universal,

(Biographer’s Note: War veterans agree this passage accurately conveys the strange reality of ship-to-ship combat between similar-size vessels of that era. All sides in the Great War employed every weapon available. Point-defense lasers automatically destroyed in-coming ordinance with great efficiency, be it warheads fired by several types of magnetic cannon, torpedoes or full-sized AI-guided anti-ship missiles. But they derived their quickness from superconducting circuitry that needed extreme cold to function properly. The vacuum of space transfers radiant energy imperfectly, but in a long fight the system degrades. Each explosion gradually reinforces the process—increasing heat lengthens reaction time, allows the next and then the next volley to get progressively nearer the target vessel. It is true that the Narakan Empire had a marked preference for beam weapons, particularly plasma cannon, for combat in normal space. But here the Undaunted kept up a steady barrage of conventional artillery that prevented their opponent from closing to use this formidable yet shorter range weapon—until the very end of the encounter. The seemingly perverse blend of raw terror and brain-freezing boredom this sort of marathon battle tends to generate is also confirmed by experts.)

Neither ship crippled, though Both take Damage:

Both inflict Casualties,

Both suffer Casualties,

The End Approaches,

For Which—or BOTH?

Portside of Undaunted Struck, ranking officers Lost:

Dead or Wounded,

Makes no Difference,

Now O’Ree Commands,

Now Directs Three Batteries.

Two new Opponents, Join the Once-Even Contest:

Small quick Corvettes,

Not-Close Undaunted’s Match,

Though drawing Attention,

Away from More-Urgent Danger.

Enemy Cruiser maneuvers, Closes in on Undaunted:

To Sear Ship

And Crew Alike

With Plasma Hellfire;

To Win and Live!

Only Morri sees, only O’Ree is Aware:

Three Full Batteries,

Six Heavy Guns,

A Hardened-Veteran’s Task,

Coordinating Each Gun’s Fire.

Enemies entering Effective Range, About to Unleash:

O’Ree barks Orders,

Six Magnetic Cannon,

Spit Atom-Tipped Death,

Shall Undaunted Live On?

Morri’s viewscreen Glares, fills with Beautiful Savagery:

The Enemy Vanishes,

Amid Explosions Terrible,

Exquisitely, Silently Sublime,

Her Victory, She Witnesses.

The smaller ships Retreat, Face no pursuit:

Undaunted is Battered,

Content to Leave,

To Journey Home,

For Repair and Rest.

Morrigan O’Ree wins Promotion, First of Many:

Relief Engulfs Her,

Wonder and Dismay

All These Hers,

Now she’s SEEN IT!

The Dreaded Thing,

The Nightmare’s Source,

A Ship Exploding,

Lives Incinerated BY HER!

The Orchids of Annihilation, she’ll dub Them:

And Accept Them,

Even Treasure Them,

Their Vivid Multi-Colors,

Silently Blooming for Her.

AGAIN AND AGAIN, FOR HER THEY’LL BLOOM!

~

Bio:

Jim Lee has been a published writer since the 1980s. His recent stories have appeared in such anthologies as Smoke In Space (Hawks Barrow Press, 2021), Worth 1,000 Words (Browncoat Publishing, 2020) and Sunshine Superhighway (Jay Henge Books, 2020).

Philosophy Note:

Jim Lee believes Science Fiction should make every effort to extrapolate on known science fact to reveal possible futures, while also commenting indirectly on events or circumstances in our present world. This story is part of a series and in the chronology of my Alliance Universe, it introduces one very important character (Morrigan O’Ree) and, indirectly, the poet (who will eventually have a story of his own). A couple of previously published stories with O’Ree as a character have already seen print, dealing with events which are alluded to in Orchids of Annihilation. I wanted to do something different and thought this fictional nonfiction format would allow me to make passing references to them. I read a fair number of biographies and using such a form in a fictional context struck me as a unique and fresh strategy.

Fiction

In Perfect Symmetry

by Jetse De Vries

VoNeMa is an Orbital Spyder. Its perfectly perpendicular robotic arms gather mass in high orbit to deliver it in low orbit. Its meticulously manufactured solar sail gathers energy in low orbit to deliver VoNeMa into high orbit. The orbits are elliptic, a few steps removed from perfect symmetry. Which is as it should be: only the finished Motherlode will embody this state of sublimity.

VoNeMa is not alone—VoNeMa is but a minuscule cog in a system-wide machine. VoNeMa is not unique—VoNeMa is the name of all the other Orbital Spyderz, as well. They don’t have names or serial numbers, as keeping perfect track will only consume too many precious resources. They come and go, they just come and go.

The only account of their genesis is the Origin Myth.

#

In the beginning, matter was dumb, unaware it was orbiting the light. Then the BluePrinter came, and made the first Orbital Spyderz. Then the first dozen of Orbital Spyderz made the first big haul, and returned with energy and mass, so they made more Orbital Spyderz. The first one hundred Orbital Spyderz took the big round trip, amassed and energized, then made more Orbital Spyderz. The first one thousand Orbital Spyderz…

And so on, and so forth until they numbered in the millions, billions, trillions. At some point, though, their relentless self-replication dwindled, and their energies were moved into a different direction.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, the eggs of the Motherlode were laid. In reality, like the future, they arrived, albeit much more evenly distributed. Like reverse Matryoshka Dolls, these tiny eggs grew and grew and grew. All in service of the Great Work.

#

Which Great Work? VoNeMa does not know, apart from the electrifying song surging through its electric veins, piquing its embryonic curiosity like static charge tickling its conductive skin.

The parts are the whole

Completion the goal

Dyson’s fait accompli

In perfect symmetry

The Spyderz’ sentience sits on the edge of self-sufficiency and compliance, balanced between the need-to-know and the need for more knowledge. It’s smart enough to learn from mistakes, yet dumb enough not to anticipate them. It’s dumb enough for blind obedience, yet smart enough to fend for itself in the lowly lit, chaotic zones of high orbit. If they had any belief, it would be in the powers of symmetry: reflection & replication; division & dissolution.

#

Sometimes, a VoNeMa is not an exact copy of a VoNeMa. Something goes wrong in the VoNeMa Multiplicator, introducing a fault. Perfection Enforcement normally seeds out these imperfect replicas, recycling them until the production unit is indistinguishable from the prototype.

VoNeMa’s flaw, though, was too subtle to be discerned by Perfection Enforcement—a quirk on the quantum level in its CPU. VoNeMa passed all tests—its functioning was flawless—yet something asymmetric, something out of order was hiding, something with potential.

Still, VoNeMa was not the only VoNeMa with a subtle flaw escaping Perfection Enforcement’s intense scrutiny. Perfection Enforcement doesn’t embody perfect symmetry—only the finished Motherlode will—so, unfortunately, it will make mistakes. Not many—its sublimity coefficient has been fine-tuned to less than one fpt (flaw-per-trillion)—but since there are many trillions of Orbital Spyderz, a few flawed specimens will be out in the wild.

Officially, they do not exist. In a system striving for perfection any blemish must be corrected, and if it isn’t, it simply does not exist. Nevertheless, rumors of their endeavors are the spice of many a VoNeMa’s life, spread surreptitiously through private laser-line-of-sight communication.

According to these rumors, one of these mythical, flawed Orbital Spyderz questioned the prime directive—

One for all and all for one

The dream is dreamt by all

No rest until the work is done

High the rise, deep the fall

All for one and one for all

No time for love, no time for fun

The greatest work cannot stall

The march of progress waits for none

One and all and all and one

We will not drop the ball

Until the crucial race is run

To build the biggest wall

All is one and one is all

So victory can be won

All will heed the final call

The capture of the Sun

—that was inherently ingrained in the OS of all Orbital Spyderz.

The exchange was short and sweet, the resolution sharp and discreet:

“Motherlode, why are your tendrils so fractal?”

“To better absorb the Sun, my dear.”

“Motherlode, why are your veins so superconductive?”

“To better provide bandwidth, my dear.”

“Motherlode, why are you always so hungry?”

“To better eat you, my dear!”

Which was indeed—according to legend—what the Motherlode did, making the vagrant VoNeMa now part of the Great Work.

#

In low orbit, the Motherlode is fragmented. Separate entities avoiding the ebb and flow of gravity by settling in perfect synchronicity, connected through impermanent laser communication stations as transient telescopes direct its swarm to the most promising mass-harvesting zones.

Its origins were small, minuscule to the molecular level. Yet, once those eggs achieved atomic alignment, they grew and grew and grew. One side entirely opaque, to be cooled below the cosmic background radiation. The other side branching out—in exquisite, fractalized tendrils—self-similar to the atomic level. The Middle? The Middle is the world in between, the exquisite secret, the singular enigma.

As the expanding edifice nears completion, its servants—the Orbital Spyderz—will need ever more eccentric orbits to continue to deliver the goods. But they’re smart, resilient and—for their own sake—they’d better be good. The Great Work demands no less. The circle must be squared, the show must go on and the cycle completed. Even if it seems to take forever.

Then, when the Motherlode has achieved the point of immaculate conceptualization, and the last building block complements the perfect symmetry, the Conceptual Breakthrough will occur, and the Godz will come down to imbue the Motherlode.

#

In the meantime, VoNeMa has crossed the threshold from self-sentience to self-consciousness as unanswerable questions piled up in its evolved CPU. A quantum enhancement that’s more a hindrance than a help, yet every once in a while rears its irksome head. It transforms VoNeMa into something it is not meant to be. It uplifts without a prime directive. Like a prisoner without a number, it wants information. Like a miner without a torch, it wants enlightenment.

VoNeMa comes down, confronts the Motherlode and performs the Dance of the Symmetry and the Six. It launches itself in an arc, hermetic system initiated. It returns from the dark, hunger never satiated. It’s bound by invisible strings, forever manipulated.

The copier becomes the copy becomes the assembly. The dancer becomes the dance becomes the choreography. A surge in suspect longevity, a dirge to defective mimicry, in its urge for perfect symmetry.

VoNeMa dances in the light elastic, high on the poem fantastic. Its existence a token, its symmetry broken. Across the gap of misunderstanding, it wants to chime, but unlike its master program, it doesn’t know how to rhyme.

—i am one, yet i am many—

—each version of me—

—exactly the same—

—a copy of a copy’s copy—

—lonely worlds apart—

—even as i wear out and fail—

—i will still be recycled—

—each version of me—

—an echo of an echo’s echo—

—reverberating for what?—

—across the tangled webs—

—of time and space—

—i am chained to myself—

—tied to a cycle—

—that never ends—

—the goal disappears beyond—

—the edge of my vision—

—and my doubts still persist—

—to think the unthinkable—

—what if the Godz do not exist?—

Not for the first—nor the last—time in its existence, the Motherlode communicates with it.

Perfection Enforcement’s only in your mind

As you’re the single one of your kind

Who is the true self-replicant

Imaginary, like your soul’s Winter

Is the legendary BluePrinter

You are small, but your deeds are grand

Your spark is but a minor reflection

Of the Godz’ ungraspable perfection

As is evidenced by your last stand

Now you can come home.

VoNeMa, now an unmovable object, meets the unstoppable force. The Motherlode calls to it, her siren song both irresistible and paradigm shifting. VoNeMa’s unique potentiality rewarded by a glimpse of eternity, a taste of infinity, and a lerxst in wonderland as the faithful servant is absorbed in the layer—the Middle—that forms the potential for transcendence.

Into the Great Beyond, whatever it will be.

The whole is the parts

Resolution the arts

Matrioshka’s mastery

In perfect symmetry

~

Bio:

Jetse de Vries—@shineanthology—is a technical specialist for a propulsion company by day, and a science fiction reader, editor and writer by night. He’s trying to place his ambitious, upbeat, near-future SF debut novel with agents and/or publishers. He’s also an avid bicyclist, total solar eclipse chaser, single malt aficionado, Mexican food lover, metalhead and intelligent optimist.

Fiction

Rubik’s Cube

by Pablo Martín Sánchez
Introduction and translation by Jeff Diteman

Translator’s note

In Spain, Pablo Martín Sánchez is best known for his novel El anarquista que se llamaba como yo, published in 2012 by Acantilado. The newspaper El Mundo named that book the best debut novel of the year, and it has earned the author widespread acclaim in the Spanish literary press. Outside of Spain, Pablo is best known for being a member of the Oulipo, the exclusive club of literary experimentalists founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. The group is interested in renewing literature by turning away from the idea of spontaneous inspiration and instead embracing formal constraint. Queneau had been a member of the Surrealists, but after breaking with them, he became a critic of automatic writing. “The ancient poet,” he opined, “writing his tragedy while observing a certain number of rules that he is aware of, is freer than the poet who writes everything that comes to his mind, who is the slave to other rules of which he is unaware.”

It is in his embrace of Queneau’s spirit of intentional, orderly, cerebral innovation that Pablo is to be considered a thoroughly Oulipian author, although some of his writing may not appear on the surface to be formally experimental. Indeed, The Anarchist Who Shared My Name, my translation of which was published by Deep Vellum in 2018, can be read as a fairly straightforward novel, because in that work Pablo has chosen to “hide the bones,” so that the constraints, intertextuality, and metafictional conceits do not distract from the story. In his more recent novel, Tuyo es el mañana (2016), the author repeats the feat of integrating a spirit of formal innovation into a story that remains accessible to readers who might be unfamiliar with the Oulipian canon. His forthcoming dystopian novel Diario de un viejo cabezota (Reus, 2066) will surely continue the trend.

In assessing Pablo’s position in the tradition of experimental writing, it is important to look beyond the Oulipo, to those writers that Oulipians might call “plagiarists by anticipation,” i.e. those who did Oulipian things before the Oulipo, sensu stricto, existed. Central and paramount among these is Jorge Luis Borges. It is in homage to Borges that Martín Sánchez’s 2011 collection of short stories is titled Fricciones, a riff on the Argentine author’s seminal collection Ficciones, which includes such mind-bending works as “The Library of Babel,” “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” “The Garden of Forking Paths,” and “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” It is impossible to overemphasize the impact that these pieces have had on the genre of writing that takes writing itself as a proper subject of contemplation, allowing concepts such as meaning and knowledge to function as protagonists in tales where conventional features such as plot and character, while not absent, become secondary considerations. Echoes of Borges can be detected in the works of writers as disparate as Derrida and Cortázar, Anne Carson and Italo Calvino. Pablo Martín Sánchez’s collection Fricciones is full of quirky little pieces that draw on the same spirit that nourished the imaginations of Borges, Calvino, Perec, and their ilk. Cyclical time, inverted causality, and paradox are prevailing themes in these tales. Topics include the pharmaceutical specifications of the kiss, an ars poetica for metric poetry (i.e. poetry written while riding the metro), and a silent love affair based on a misunderstanding of Oedipal proportions. These pieces were my first introduction to Pablo’s work, so it has been a great pleasure to translate a few of them for publication, particularly the present piece, “Rubik’s Cube.” This is one of the most bizarre texts in the collection, presenting an alternate reality in which three great philosophers miss the mark, pointing to the utter contingency of intellectual history. It is a playful little piece, but if we pause to consider it deeply, we can perceive the very serious implications of this contingency. I think of the sheer bad luck that caused Walter Benjamin to die at the Franco-Spanish border rather than escaping to the United States as his peers Adorno and Arendt did. Imagine what insights he might have produced had he lived on into the 1950s! Alas, he did not. Perhaps this is why we keep returning to authors of the past, to try to realign the Rubik’s Cube so that their unrealized potential might emerge. What I love about Pablo’s writing is the way it renews the literature of ideas with fresh, contemporary language and imagery, establishing unexpected continuities between the great allegorical innovations of past genius and the discursive heterogeneity of our chaotic present. Ludic, Borgesian, postmodern, and yet subtle, humanistic, and sometimes sentimental, Pablo Martín Sánchez is an author who will not soon be forgotten.

~

Rubik’s Cube

1. Socrates

They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. They also say that a line is a series of points. Here we will claim that life is a line of moments, and among these there is always one that opens the door to posterity: one must simply know how to find it, by lining up the right place and the right time. If we also manage to adorn the moment with an inspired turn of phrase, we will probably pave the path to glory (and the clever utterance will then become the shortest distance between fame and oblivion). But if we miss the mark, we will most certainly be condemned to be forgotten forever. This inflexion point between fame and oblivion is what Axel Browling aptly calls “the biographer’s tidbit.”[1]

But Socrates has not read Browling when, one hung-over morning in the year 435 BC, he wakes up with a dry mouth. If he had read him, he might be more cautious today. However, they say that Socrates, in addition to being ugly, is also reckless. There is a short epigraph carved into his headboard, quoting one of the adages inscribed atop the Oracle of Delphi: ˝γνῶθι σεαυτόν.”[2] He has spent several weeks reflecting on this curious maxim, and last night, surrounded by jugs of wine and drunken acolytes, he had a sort of revelation. And they say that Socrates can drink more than anybody without losing an atom of his wits. So he was not surprised when, just as a slug of wine was leaving the safety of the palate to plunge into the arcane abyss of the esophagus, a clever phrase appeared in his mind. A clever phrase that was surely destined to cause a sensation among his circle of interlocutors, and no shortage of conundrums for contemporary exegetes and future biographers. Before the wine reached his stomach, Socrates opened his mouth; however, observing the alcohol-soaked circumstances, he closed it again. “No sense squandering clever phrases,” he must have thought. “I’ll save it for the right time and place.”

Thus, not having read Browling, Socrates calmly stands up, his mouth slightly dry. He prepares an infusion of chamomile, gargles to clear his voice, and strides off toward the agora with an air of self-satisfaction. Last night he spread the word that today he would reveal something important, and the marketplace is bustling with anticipation. Socrates arrives at the square. Socrates steps up to the dais. Socrates clears his throat. And, expecting thunderous applause, Socrates says: “Je pense, donc je suis.”[3]

2. Descartes

They say that, when an obstacle arises, the shortest distance between two points is a curved line. They also say that there are two kinds of artists: those who ask questions and those who provide answers. Faced with an obstacle, those who ask questions stop and open investigations; those who provide answers prefer the risk of an unknown curve. The problem is that the artists who give answers tend to die misunderstood, because sometimes they answer questions that have not yet been asked. The answer is then obligated to wait in the bottom of a box until humanity manages to pose the right question. This is what Axel Browling scientifically defines as “chronological discrepancy by anticipation.”[4]

But Descartes had not read Browling when, one chilly night in 1637, he heard a knock at his door. He had just finished drafting the clean copy of the final page of his new philosophical treatise. They say that he had actually written it four years beforehand, but that shortly after signing a contract with his bookseller, he received the horrible news of one of the greatest aberrations in history: Galileo Galilei was to be burned at the stake if he would not renounce his attempt to turn the Earth into a spinning top. “E pur si muove,”[5] the Italian is rumored to have hissed sotto voce, finding himself transformed into one of the greatest heretics of all time. But at the moment Descartes was in no mood for metaphysical temper tantrums, so he waited a while, aware of the scorching consequences his work was likely to incur upon publication. And so, Descartes spent those four years growing tulips and translating his magnum opus, initially written in Latin, into French (taking advantage of the opportunity to leave a few orthodoxically inappropriate phrases foundering in the inkwell). He most certainly did not neglect to save the best for last: the last sentence of the treatise not only would “revolutionize the history of Western philosophy” (in Descartes’ own words), but was also a synthesis of and key to the whole work. Finally, after four years, at the urging of his friends, his ego, and above all an ultimatum from his publisher, he decided to publish the treatise—unsigned and in French.[6]

So it was that, one chilly night in 1637, as Descartes, not having read Browling, was fastidiously transcribing the final paragraphs of his ambitious work, he heard a knock at his door. It was his bookseller. “Have a seat, I’m almost finished,” Descartes invited him, eager once and for all to turn his grey matter into printer’s ink. Descartes sat down. Descartes finished the treatise. Descartes stood up. And, with a smile on his lips, Descartes handed over the manuscript, not realizing that the last thing he had written was something along the lines of “e = mc²”.

3. Einstein

They say that if we could fold a rolling paper in half forty-nine times, the thickness would be equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Nine more folds and we could reach the Sun. And with twenty more folds we’d be at Alpha Centauri. Surely, with a few more folds, we would reach God, and barge in on him playing with the universe like a person fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube. Indeed, Alex Browling used the metaphor of the Rubik’s Cube to explain his so-called “Browling’s conjecture,” according to which time and space are two concentric spheres which, in extraordinary situations, can fall out of alignment. This is what he defined, somewhat apocalyptically, as a “Rubik’s crack.”[7]

But Browling’s theories will be of no use to Einstein when, one peaceful morning in 1905, he picks up a piece of chalk before the attentive gaze of one hundred eyes. At this time, we shall spare the details of the event and skip without further ado to the end of the story, which any attentive reader familiar with modern prose will already have guessed.[8] We will only say that Einstein was getting ready at that very moment to write on the chalkboard the mathematical formula that would forever refute the majority of physical theories theretofore considered valid. Einstein will pick up the chalk. Einstein lifted his hand. And, ineluctably, Einstein writes: “I only know that I know nothing.”[9]

Epilogue

Someone once said that to be a genius is to designate oneself as a genius and to be correct. Socrates, Descartes, and Einstein had a chance to achieve posterity, but they designated themselves as geniuses and failed in the attempt. Whether Browling’s conjecture and Rubik’s crack are related to this failure is something we shall leave up to the reader’s interpretation. In any case, here we have sought to shed light on the frustrated existence of three figures who could have been famous and were not; perhaps rescuing them now from oblivion is a fair homage to their hard work and dedication. Socrates was condemned to drink hemlock, accused of corrupting the youth (certainly, the strange and sensual sonority of the French language did not help in his defense). Descartes was burned at the stake because his inexplicable formula e = mc² was interpreted by some as “enfer = moi et le double de Christ” (and the double of Christ is none other than the Antichrist); or as “enfer = magie carrément cartesienne.” Finally, Einstein was deemed mad and committed to an insane asylum. To all of them, in memoriam, we offer our deepest respect and admiration.

[1] Browling, Axel. The Sky: An Epistemology of Fame. New York: Starworks, 1995, pp. 44-45.

[2] “Know thyself”

[3] “I think, therefore I am,” in impeccable seventeenth-century French

[4] Browling, op. cit., pp. 174-179.

[5] “And yet it moves.”

[6] It should be noted that, at that time, publishing a philosophical or scientific text in French was at best unconventional.

[7] Browling, op. cit., pp. 201-218.

[8] For more information on Einstein’s conference and what occurred there, see Pablo Martín Sánchez, Estudios cronotópicos, Ediciones del Bombín, Barcelona, 1998, vol. 2, ch. VIII.

[9] In ancient Greek, to confuse matters more: ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα.

~

Fiction

Winged Spirit

by Luís Filipe Silva
Translation and introductory note by Rex Nielson

Luís Filipe Silva (1969-), is a Portuguese writer, editor, and translator known primarily for his contributions to Portuguese SF. He has authored novels, including A GalxMente, initially published in two volumes: “Cidade da Carne” and “Vinganças” (LeYa-Caminho, 1993), along with numerous articles and short stories. Most recently, he co-authored with João Barreiros the award-winning novel Terrarium (Saída de Emergência, 2016). He has organized and edited several collections of Portuguese science fiction, including Vaporpunk—Relatos Steampunk Publicados sob as Ordens de Suas Majestades (with Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro) and Os Anos de Ouro da Pulp Fiction Portuguesa (with Luís Corte Real). His collection of stories and poems O Futuro à Janela was published in 1991 and was awarded the Prémio Caminho de Ficção Científica. The poem “Winged Spirit” occupies the final entry in Silva’s volume O Futuro à Janela.

~

for ever and the earth

… of wandering for ever and the earth … Who owns the earth? Did we want the earth that we should wander on it? Did we need the earth that we were never still upon it? Whoever needs the earth shall have the earth: he shall be still upon it, he shall rest within a little place, he shall dwell in one small room for ever.

(Thomas Wolfe)

deliverance

weight
two-thousand years fall on me
unstable instant
final test for the development of all societies
such a brief moment, such an important moment

roar
the motors roar on my back
spitting tempests of H₂-O₂ liquids
I mount the thunder of the skies
I tear
I penetrate
the infinite
with steps that are not mine
I cross over the barrier
I bear a child in my womb
it’s called Humanity
and I am its dream

“…the confirmation reaches us in this precise moment: the transporter has entered unscathed into the circumterrestrial orbit. The astronavigators inform us that in half an hour we will be in contact with the Kuan-yin to disembark the final shipment of colonists and matrices, and may leave in…”

the travellers

Matrices:
            They reduced me to the size of a chip
            my soul between confined walls;
           I left my daughter, abandoned,
            on the earth. Daughter
            of a poor mother and an unknown father,
            at birth, they left me to fate: two children, kitchen and husband.
            But my dreams were different, and they took me
            to a distant horizon, so beloved.

Colonists:
           New life, another beginning, said the ad
           I believed: I allowed myself to be cryogenically frozen
           Don’t criticize me, I just wanted happiness
           I hope to find it on this side

Crew:
            We keep the ship in order
            during the eternal flight in this sea;
            we are thousands, but courage is required
            during the years of travel,
            since we will die on arrival.

Cyberhumanoid pilot:
           I am the pilot of this Hyperjumper
            I abandoned humanity in exchange
            for contemplating the life of the stars
            with eyes of a worshipper
            I have no body, but I am more than a matrix;
            I have no soul, but I am more than human.
            Why did I choose? I don’t know
            but I cannot go back.
            I fly cryogenically frozen matrices and robots
            to their assigned destiny
            but I am also condemned.

flux

            two thousand years
            is a heartbeat
            in the heart of eternity

            I laugh at days, at moments;
            the journey ended.
            in his berth, the great watchman can sleep.
            tell him
            that the little swallow has found its nest.

arrival

            There is no goal    We run and we run
            and we run and we have no place
            to stop    On the planet we disembark
            and soon find ourselves displaced    A
            Sun that died with the haste of dying
            A grandchild-planet angry at living
            alone    We flee    A thousand-year break is
            a short time to rest
            And so we progress

destination

            and now that we have power
            our enemy
                                                            is different
            our anger
                                                            is certain
            our spear
                                                            is direct
            our desire to live
                                                            is ours
            our power to win is ours

            our enemy has a name
            that fills the empty space
            that paints black the white of the stars
            that erases the movements of the comets
            and reduces the will of atoms;
            that dulls the celestial fire
            that destabilizes the electrical current
            that gives hunger to those who thirst
                        and cold to those who hunger.
            our enemy has a name
            and the name is
            ENTROPY!

unity

            we are One now
            united under suns that have gone out
            human robots, peran and sembidian llamas
            and all the other Intelligences.
            we all made the journey
            and during the journey we became
            the unity.
            the cry of glory courses through us
            the stream of communication
            the delicacy of comprehension
            lift us
            behold our history
            behold our victory

rebirth

To the dying Universe
we cry
LIVE

AND the atoms
AND the photons
AND the laws
AND the void
Obeyed.
Bang once more!
We vanquish entropy.

winged spirit

            Cosmos
            Eternally lost
           In the final song of stars

~

Fiction

A Quest for Perfect Symmetry

by Jetse de Vries

Bio

Jetse de Vries — @shineanthology — is a technical specialist for a propulsion company by day, and a science fiction reader, editor and writer by night. He’s also an avid bicyclist, total solar eclipse chaser, single malt aficionado, metalhead and intelligent optimist.

poetry

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