Science Fiction Recent Reads

I could not do better than this myself, which is why I do not write fiction. If real science were not difficult enough imaginative science is more challenging because you cannot just look up the answers. Science fiction has rules and one of them is that you cannot violate known science without an explanation (however thin it might be). Most often that invention or discovery is the basis for the story. Sometimes, it can be slid in behind the story, just another element in a wonderful new future or very different planet. The hyperspace that modern writers must now belabor, Cordwainer Smith only tagged “the up and out” – and that’s where the dragons were. That was acceptable in 1955 and 1963. Now, we demand more than wonderment. 

The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 4

Edited by Allan Kaster

An unabridged collection spotlighting the best hard science fiction stories 

and novellas published in 2019 by current and emerging masters of the genre.

Infinivox

Post Office Box 418

Barker, Texas 77413

https://www.infinivoxsf.com/

Cynicism and pessimism can be antidotes to chronic optimism but in our time, the expectation of success is the cure we need and are not getting from science fiction. Most of the stories in this anthology center on severe climate change or some other disaster not well defined. Nuclear war or bionic plague would be explanations, but a cause would suggest reasonable responses and in “At the Fall” by Alec-Nevala-Lee nothing like that is offered. The reader can cheer for the plucky robot, but ultimately, we never learn the reason for the complete demise of our civilization. 

 

Global warming sets the backdrop for the effects of corporate-controlled genetically-modified crops in “Winter Wheat” by Gord Sellar. I never got to the end of the story to find out if the off-camera hero, the father of the narrator, actually developed a strain of wheat to compete with the GMO. 

 

This is Not the Way Home by Greg Egan opens the anthology and sets the context for undefined disasters on Earth that our viewpoint characters must overcome. In this story, Earth stops responding to the Luna colony. Some of the members take off in a rocket home. (We never learn what happens to them.) In that event, the viewpoint character’s husband is killed (meaninglessly). Then, she cleverly builds a plan to bring her new baby and herself back to Earth. The ending is not quite clear. I think they made it. Regardless, the reader never finds out what happened on Earth to cause the story.

 

We create experiments at colonization by locking people in biodomes. (Prisons should also be highly informative here.) And it is no surprise based on experiences at sea (and under the sea) that extended periods of close quartering requires some insightful management. So, it is predictable that in ”Sacrificial Iron” by Tom Kosmatka the two people launched into deep space to carry a cargo of genomes to a new world learn to hate each other. Death was anti-climactic. But the mechanism of FTL was interesting. 

The ship drive worked on a simple principle. You can’t travel faster than the speed of light, but the speed of light can change. No longer 299,792,458 m/s, but something else, governed by the field-state of the space-time through which light propagates. The engines didn’t change the shape of space, only shifted its internal calculus. … Since the Big Bang, particles have precipitated out of the vacuum as the Universe inflated, bleeding out excess field density into the real while the speed of light slowed over billions of years—if only slightly. But what if you could reverse it? Sublimate matter into the system, increase the field-state of the local vacuum. Invert the trendline. Spacetime would have to shed the extra energy back somewhere. It sheds it back into the speed of light.

 

Science fiction has always depended on intellectual sleight of hand. But I also have read that the Universe does not “expand” as particles at the “edge of space” stream out into nothing. Nothing is not a different kind of something. Nothing is nothing. Rather, the Universe expands between particles, the spacetime that separates processes that we call “particles” is what expands. So, Tom Kosmatka offered an interesting interpretation from modern physics.

 

The idea in “Ring Wave” by Tom Jolly is that when Earth is struck by an asteroid some people can survive in pods placed at the circumference of the strike zone because those capsules will be ejected into space. Jolly imagines a cut-throat struggle before and especially after the strike. And that conflict includes guns. I do not know if Tom Jolly ever fired a gun here on Earth, but if you imagine firing one in space, you have to visualize the conservation of energy, of momentum, of angular momentum. You will spin about your center of mass impelled by the moment-arm of the reaction. In addition to centering the gun on your center of mass (rather than extending your arm as you would here on Earth), you have to be cognizant of how you are pointing the gun. The velocity vector in reaction must balance the shot you just fired. And in this story, there’s a lot of firing and no reactioning. 

 

As compelling as was the premise of a story of mating between spiders, Sarina Dorie’s “A Mate Not a Meal” left me insensitive about halfway through. 

 

On the Shores of Ligeia by Carolyn Ives Gilman offered a lot. I might not have followed the author’s logic. The story is about the exploration of Titan by a virtual experience through enhanced vision from remote mapping. The time lag must be about 80 to 160 minutes and the author writes for that most of the time, but I am just not clear on that. Not all of the action suggests evidence of that time lag. Also, at the end, without any explanation of the evolution of international politics the deus ex machina is a global crowdsource of school children who were empowered by China’s freely given project in VR and ER. 

 

I was rewarded and pleasantly surprised by an unpleasant idea about colonizing outer space and other planets: What do you do with the dead? In “The Menace from Far Side” by Ian McDonald, life on the Moon requires recycling. Why would it not? But I never heard of it in that way before. In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Mycroftxxx  says that despite recycling, Luna must run out of water. This mainly because they are exporting grain to Earth, but the deeper logic cannot be ignored, hence the happiness at the realworld discovery of water on the Moon. (NASA here: https://science.nasa.gov/moon/moon-water-and-ices/ ) But as for the dead, no one speaks of them. In McDonald’s story, the revelation is scary, the stuff that youngsters tell each other. But it is something to consider. And I have to confess to not actually reading the story. I started it, then skimmed it and found this, but the writing style alienated me. The story has a glossary at the end; for myself, if you need a glossary at the end of the story, each entry admits to a failure of narrative. 

 

I mentioned Greg Egan’s Slipway in the post before this one. Other stories in the anthology are:

• Cyclopterus by Peter Watts
• The Ocean Between the Leaves by Ray Nayler
• Cloud-Born by Gregory Feeley
• The Little Shepherdess by Gwyneth Jones
• By the Warm of Their Calculus by Tobias S. Buckell
• Soft Edges by Elizabeth Bear

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Fantastic Voyages: Teaching Science with Science Fiction 

Monsters from the Id 

Forbidden Planet 

All Volitional Beings Deserve Rights 

Recent Reads – Science Fiction: Questionable and Trash

At least it makes you think—but not too much.  

 

For the second time in my life, I threw out a book because it was not good enough to pass along. Commune 2000 AD by Mack Reynolds was disappointing on many levels, but not too many because it did not have many. I bought the book last year at ArmadilloCon 45. It was clearly a period piece from 1975. As it happened, I later received The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy by Ursula K. Le Guin, as a door prize in return for my judging half a dozen flash fiction entries from the convention’s Writers’ Workshop.  Le Guin complained often about capitalism and the lack of socialist science fiction. So, I googled for “socialist science fiction” and along with Edward Bellamy, Jack London, and others, I found Mack Reynolds. 

In his autobiographical sketch appended to Commune 2000 A. D., Mack Reynolds (1917-1983) tells of being raised in the culture of socialism. He dropped out of high school to volunteer for the Socialist Workers Party. Indeed, at one point in Commune 2000 A.D., Reynolds uses the

word “chauvinism” in a gender context. It is only in passing because the bulk of the book is about the hero having sex with an array of “mopsies.” Not one character with agency is a woman. Tasked by the equivalent of the CIA and FBI (for whom his academic post-doctoral advisor is fronting) to investigate independent countercultural “communes” neither the hero nor Reynolds writes much sociology while visiting only three or four within a day’s drive of New York City. And they are all pretty much alike. The key to their very existence and a basic fact of this future is that the guaranteed annual income created stiff competition for any job that offered surcease from leisure. Intriguing as that is, we spend more time in bed with blondes, natural and bleached, ten or 15 years our junior. And the best part is that the hero rants against the CIA, FBI, and Academe to their faces in a small room and then walks away, The End. I was disappointed that he was not shot dead by lasers in the doorway.

My incentive to read Ursula K. LeGuin came from the movie version of The Jane Austen Book Club. The male in the group, a young tech entrepreneur, eventually introduces his match-up to science fiction and Le Guin is one of his favorites. Already knowing The Lathe of Heaven, I enjoyed The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Much of  The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy by Ursula K. Le Guin was beyond my ken because she was writing for voracious readers and some of these essays came from acceptance speeches for awards at conventions. I found much of the content here open to question and counter-argument. 

 

Le Guin was not the feminist she claimed to be. She could not be because at some level, we are all products of our environments. In this collection of essays written between 1967 and 1977, LeGuin rarely uses the indefinite “she/her” versus “he/him” to stand for any human being. She was born in 1929. A writer on her own as a child and youth and into her adult years, publication success came at age 40. Early habits form deeply. So, she defaults to a “a person … he.”   

Similarly, her rants against the Establishment are stuck in the 1960s. “From a social point of view most SF has been incredibly regressive an unimaginative. All those Galactic Empires taken straight from the British Empire of 1880. All those planets—with 80 trillion miles between them!—conceived of as warring nation-states, or as colonies to be exploited, or to be nudged by the benevolent Imperium of Earth toward self-development—the White Man’s Burden all over again. The Rotary Club on Alpha Centauri, that’s the size of it.” (“American SF and the Other”)

Le Guin’s imperium in The Left Hand of Darkness is not much different, only vaguer, less well-defined. Limited by the distances between the stars, it has no choice but to balance benign neglect with heartfelt helpfulness. 

 

She advocates mildly for socialism (“American SF and the Other”): “Socialism is never considered as an alternative, and democracy is quite forgotten.” However, that denies Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. In Jack London’s The Iron Heel fascism is in the past; the story is told from the socialist present of the future. Le Guin might not have known about Octavia Butler, but could not have missed Mack Reynolds, neither of whom appears in this anthology. 

 

I suggest that the reason that SF generally does not present a successful socialist society is that it seems less plausible than FTL and time travel. That being as it may, I did find these resources for those who steer to portside. 

• Science fiction and Socialism from Solidarity website https://solidarity-us.org/p2137/
• “50 Sci Fi and Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read” https://portside.org/2017-11-18/50-sci-fi-fantasy-works-every-socialist-should-read
• Socialism and Science Fiction from Workers Liberty https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2020-04-05/socialism-and-science-fiction (or read online at https://workersliberty.org/node/35385).
• Le Guin is recognized for her socialism in “How Sci-Fi Shaped Socialism” by Nick Hubble at Jacobin dot com. https://jacobin.com/2020/12/utopian-science-fiction-socialism-history and https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2020-04-05/socialism-and-science-fiction
• See also, the Comments following Socialist Futurism: Sci-Fi for Reds and Greens at https://solidarity-us.org/p2137/Comments

 

As for Le Guin’s essays on writing, remove the dross and what’s left is gold. Le Guin’s best critiques center on the lack of style in language among writers who mechanically produce fantasy (“sword and sorcery”) and she contrasts poor efforts against J. R. R. Tolkien E. R. Eddison, and Kenneth Morris. (Tolkien I know; the others I do not.) Her complaint is not just against the fake medieval grammar which is often erroneous, but that the conversations could have taken place in Poughkeepsie rather than Elfland. I believe that the word  that she was looking for was “gravitas.” The best stories are important to the reader because they are important to the writer and language delivers that inherent sense of value. 

Those books transcended their authors. Le Guin says in “The Book is What is Real” that as a child she was often unaware and uninterested in the author even as she re-read her favorite books. Reading a book is an interaction. “As you read it word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note in the creation, the coming-t0-be, the existence of the music. And as you read, and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.” 

 

In “Do-It-Yourself Cosmology” Le Guin places science fiction within the realm of fantasy. It is a cogent suggestion from someone who wrote both successfully. We perhaps too easily set the genres apart as we separate Westerns from Historical Romance. I long ago lost the citation, but I read a critical essay by a science fiction author who said that science fiction is the appropriate literature for our modern culture whereas so-called mainstream fiction is really historical fiction set in the present. Le Guin says that fantasy is subjective and inward while science fiction is what comes from giving fantasy “the power and intractability of the object.”

 

Overall, I like the language in the stories from mathematician Greg Egan. I found his “Slipway” in The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 4 edited by Allan Kaster. I then requested The Best of Greg Egan from my local library and of those, the ones I remember are “Dark Integers,” “Bit Players,” and “Axiomatic.”

 

I had to read “Slipway” twice to understand the narrative. I liked it because it opened with an amateur astronomer terminally ill with cancer. From there, the story went to professionals trying to understand a phenomenon that seems to be swallowing space and the Earth, which it does: we apparently pass through it  or it around us – and we are transported 65,000 light years farther toward the edge of the Galaxy. However, for this story and the others, one criticism summed up my lack of enthusiasm for someone who writes like I do (and why I do not write fiction).

 

RocketStackRank by Greg Hullender and Eric Wong http://www.rocketstackrank.com/2019/06/The-Slipway-Greg-Egan.html had this to say about the downside.

Con: It’s a pretty low-stakes story. The only thing that’s really lost here is the view of the night sky and humanity’s ability to get to the nearest stars. The protagonist has nothing at stake at all, other than the prospect of a better job in a different country.” 

 

And she apparently had the job before the story started but only had not yet been offered it. So, this was truly low stakes for the heroine. That said, though, It did not bother me that no one died or became a better person. It was just a technical story about something that happened. All of his works are like that. “Bit Players” is one of three in a series from the viewpoint of artificial characters in a gaming universe. They are non-playing characters (NPCs gamers call them). They are trying to figure out who they are and what their world is, but they are warned by other characters that if they show too much awareness, they will be deleted. Their situation was depressing and I lost interest in the outcome. As far as I can tell, Egan is in the mainstream of the dystopian present. It was cute when it was cyberpunk in the 1980s and 90s. Now, it is just tiresome.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Books Read and Not Read in 2023 

Dealers Make the Show: ArmadilloCon 41 Day 3 Part 2 

Monsters from the Id 

ArmadilloCon 45 

 

NGC 6207 in Hercules

Andromeda is easy enough. I logged M81/M82 using the NASA OWN remote telescope (9 July 2021). The Austin club's dark sky site is south of the city, so at star parties the Messier objects in Ursa Major are problematic with a smaller refractor. From my backyard, I have never had any success with the Virgo Cluster or the Leo Triplet. So, I made a list of 10 Spiral Galaxies to pursue and last night I found NGC 6207 in Hercules. (These comments appeared first in the Cloudy Nights forum for Deep Sky and the Observation Log Continued). 

Last night and this morning, I found NGC 6207 in Hercules. 

Nominally in a “suburb” the sky here is too white. Last night, I used a binocular (10x42) to search for the Milky Way, but no joy. I have a hospital one mile to my north with a gas station between us. I think that NGC 6207 was successful because it is near the zenith.

I was viewing with the Astro-Tech 115 mm triplet. With focal length F=805mm its theoretic limits are Magnitude 12.8, Resolution 1.01 arc-sec; Magnification 230X. I was unable to see Messier 101 magnitude 7.9 low in the north but found NGC 6207 magnitude 11.6 near the zenith, and the magnifications were 57X and 115X. Sky conditions are more important than aperture and magnification. Anyway, I was happy to have seen something new and very far away (30 million LY). 

Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC 6207 from 
Wikimedia Commons. 
My view was more like a globular cluster: 
a small white circular array of very close dots.
The spiral was not evident at all.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Observing with NASA: An Open Platform for Citizen Science 

(Not) Observing with NASA and Harvard 

Messier 13: the Hercules Cluster 

An Online Class in Astrophysics 

Jim Simons and the Quants

Being centered on mathematicians, this book was not exciting, but it was interesting. James Harris “Jim” Simons (1938-2024) earned his doctorate at Berkeley, and worked for the NSA and the Institute for Defense Analysis, before teaching at Harvard and MIT. (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons). And that is in this story, of course. The focus, however, is on Renaissance Technologies and their hedge funds (Medallion and others), the most successful trading firm in history. Simons’s background in language recognition—pattern recognition; pattern prediction—allowed him the insight to expect that correlations must exist across markets, even if causal factors ultimately remain hidden. Therefore, it should be possible to profit from trading on trends that are unexpected and unperceived by everyone else. He was right.

The Man Who Solved the Market:
How Jim Simons Launched
the Quant Revolution 
by Gregory Zuckerman
(Penguin RandomHouse, 2019)

The method was easy to explain: mine the data. Look at all the numbers from all the markets and seek out trends and patterns and correlations. Some turned out to be causative. Regression to the mean predicts that after some market has a remarkably bad day, prices will rebound. The prediction applies to hugely profitable days: the market reverts toward its previous level. That much is easy to understand. The rest never gets explained. 

 

For one thing, no one associated with Renaissance Technologies was willing to talk to Gregory Zuckerman because they were bound by deep long-term non-disclosure agreements. Aside from that, the powerhouse of the company was driven by its staff of Ph.D. mathematicians. It would have to be understood at their level before it could be explained to the rest of us. 

 

What can be understood is that on average, employees who invested with the firm earned about $50 million each. “Since 1988, Renaissance's flagship Medallion hedge fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent, racking up trading profits of more than $100 billion…” (Introduction). With that money came power, of course. Robert Mercer put his ideology to work when he found Steve Bannon for the Donald Trump presidential campaign in 2016. However, Jim Simons was a Democrat. And he was not alone in that. Many of the academics in the firm were liberals and they contributed to political campaigns, naturally, and also to special foundations (some of their own creation) supporting education, medical research, and other social initiatives.

 

Jim Simons’s methodology was a long time coming. Computers were rare and costly. Ten years later, they acquired the first desktop computers, which were woefully underppowered by today's standards. Although he launched the firm specifically to mine data so that profits could be harvested from trends, Renaissance Technologies also employed traditional traders. The two teams often collided, with Jim Simons himself significantly abandoning the algorithms for what would be too easily called “gut instinct.” Sometimes, we just know.  Also, with that mountain of cash, and with their frequent intra-day trades, they did not need to be often right. At the peak, in Jim Simons’s last decade, with the models and algorithms and supercomputers all generating money, Renaissance Technologies was right only 51% of the time.

 

One aspect of the story which I believe explains as much of their success as their mathematical models, is that Renaissance Technologies adhered to the ideal academic organizational culture. Workspaces were open. Visiting around the office was common. Sharing ideas was habitual. Discussion and disagreement were encouraged. (Pages 199-203). (See also "Team of Teams" on this blog.) It was not always easy and some people never forgave others for their complete lack of social grace. Neither time nor money heals all wounds.

But we all enjoy the profits. Zuckerman presents this as a zero-sum game. For Renaissance Technologies to have profited, many other brokerages, whose clients were stereotypically “dentists” (and other middle class professionals), had to lose. It is true that every trading position requires two people with opposite expectations. Ultimately, conservation of energy (charge; spin) means that everything must be accounted for with nothing magically lost or gained. And yet here we are: 10 billion people, 50% of us in cities of over 1 million; flying around 10 kilometers above the ground or cruising on the ground at 100 kph. We could not have hunted and gathered enough to make this possible. If not for Jim Simons and Renaissance Technologies, we would each of us be poorer by unperceived small fractions that did not become the comforts we enjoy.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Two Books About Fermat’s Last Theorem 

The Remarkable Story of Risk 

Happy Pi Day of the Century 

Coins Without Realms (Digital Currency) 

Some Limitations of ChatGPT

University of Texas president Jay Hartzell declared this to be "The Year of AI." So, the assignment for my "Mental Spa Day" at work was to be introduced to ChatGPT. The first task was to compare Google with ChatGPT.  "Choose a topic to search in both Google and ChatGPT: How did the results differ? What were you looking for and which one gave you the information that you needed?" 

The two tools are different, of course, though Google does now claim to be supported by an AI Assistant. 

I asked if Gerard Kuiper ever met Beatrice Tinsely, if Otto Struve ever met Gerard Kuiper, and if Otto Struve ever met Beatrice Tinsley. ChatGPT delivered approximately the same reply in all three cases. In that, it completely missed the fact that Struve and Kuiper worked together at the University of Chicago before Kuiper took over the McDonald Observatory from Struve.

I then asked ChatGPT: Tell me about the pay warrants of the Texian Navy, a subject for which I did independent research. My work was presented as an article in The Numismatist and as a lecture at an ANA Convention (virtual via Zoom) 4 August 2020. That talk is available on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWGzivjlOUI

ChatGPT's answer was at once cursory and inventive. Contrary to its claims, the warrants did not specify the period of service or the vessel on which the sailor served. The warrants were issued solely on the authority of Commodore Edwin Ward Moore. They were repudiated by Pres. Sam Houston. ChatGPT's offering is echoic of a college student writing to fill space when they cannot answer the question.

ChatGPT replied:

[quote] The pay warrants of the Texian Navy were a form of financial compensation issued to sailors and officers serving in the navy of the Republic of Texas during the 19th century. The Texian Navy, also known as the Texas Navy, played a crucial role in the fight for Texan independence from Mexico and in protecting the fledgling republic's coastline.

As with any military or naval force, it was essential to ensure that sailors and officers were compensated for their service. The pay warrants served as a form of promissory note, guaranteeing payment for their work and dedication to the cause of Texan independence.

The pay warrants were typically issued by the government of the Republic of Texas, often by the Navy Department or other relevant authorities responsible for managing naval affairs. These warrants were written documents specifying the amount of money owed to the individual sailor or officer, as well as any relevant details such as the period of service and the vessel on which they served.

In many cases, pay warrants could be redeemed for cash or used to purchase goods and services, depending on the policies and resources available to the Republic of Texas at the time. However, it's worth noting that the financial situation of the Republic of Texas was often precarious, and there were instances where pay warrants could not be immediately honored due to budgetary constraints or other factors.

Despite these challenges, the Texian Navy played a crucial role in safeguarding Texan interests and maintaining maritime security during a tumultuous period in the region's history. The issuance of pay warrants was a tangible acknowledgment of the sacrifices made by sailors and officers who served in the navy, ensuring that they received the compensation they were owed for their service to the Republic of Texas. [close]

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Misconduct in Science and Research

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Fan Fic by ChatGPT (Part 3)

 Write a story in which the character of Temperance Brennan from the televisions series “Bones” meets the character of Sherlock Holmes as played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the television series “Sherlock.” They are separately on vacation in Austin, Texas. They meet on a tour of the Lady Bird Johnson Wild Flower Center. While admiring the plants and other wildlife, they see a foot under a bush and discover a body. They are kidnapped. They outwit their captors.

One of the assistant directors in my department made this our “Mental Spa Day” task  for the month of April 2024.

Assignment:  Watch this course and send me the certificate of completion:

LinkedIn Learning  Introduction to Generative AI with GPT by Jonathan Reichenta. 

1.   Choose a topic to search in both Google and ChatGPT: How did the results differ? What were you looking for and which one gave you the information that you needed?

2.   Have Chat GPT write a short story or poem with the following parameters: 

·               Use a favorite character from two of your favorite tv shows/movie/book – so, you have two characters; 

·               Have them meet while on vacation in ____________(location of your choosing); 

·               Have them describe the location surrounding them; 

·               Have them go on two adventures. 

Send me the story.

The first task was trivial and I took care of that. Then for Step 2, I started with the stories posted here earlier as Fan Fic 1 and Fan Fic 2.  I wanted to see how ChatGPT would respond. Then, I created the assignment here about Temperance Brennan meeting Sherlock Holmes. That was a three-step process: They meet and find the body. They are  kidnapped. They escape.

[24 January 2026: About a month after I posted this, I went back and edited the work of ChatGPT. With iterative effort, I can make it sound like me. An astrologer would say that this  opposition of ideas must be considered from all possible aspects.]

ChatGPT—Botanical Bones: An Unexpected Encounter

In the heart of Austin, Texas, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center sprawled with vibrant colors and the fragrant scents of nature. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist known for her meticulous attention to detail, found herself on vacation in the Lone Star State, seeking solace amidst the blooming wildflowers expansive and variegated arrays of blooms.

Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes, the enigmatic detective with a penchant for deduction, had chosen Austin as his destination for a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle oppressive noise of London.

Their paths converged unexpectedly on a guided tour of the Wildflower Center where they found themselves admiring the indigenous flora and fauna. Insert: As they strolled along the meandering paths, each purposefully drifted incrementally away from their tour, until they are alone, apart, and nonetheless together. Brennan's keen eye caught sight of something out of place beneath a bush. She knelt down for a closer look, her forensic instincts kicking in.

“What do you see?” Holmes inquired, his curiosity instantly piqued by in response to Brennan's sudden focus.

Brennan gestured towards the bush. “There's something under there. It looks like a foot.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow. intrigued by her observation. Without hesitation, he crouched on all fours beside her, his triplet magnifier in his hand. joined her. his keen powers of deduction were already at work thoroughly engaged. Together, they carefully moved aside the foliage to reveal a grim discovery a human body, partially incompletely (and therefore hastily) concealed beneath the undergrowth.

Brennan's forensic mind immediately went into overdrive highly trained and deeply practiced routine catalogued the as she assessed the scene, noting the position of the body and any potential its forensic context. His need for self-control was defeated by his compulsion to state the obvious. Holmes, ever the astute observer, took in every detail with a sharp eye, his mind racing through the possibilities  “Murder, undoubtedly,” he remarked, his tone matter-of-fact.

Brennan nodded in agreement. already mentally cataloging the clues surrounding them. “Yes, and the state of decomposition suggests the body has been here for some time for about 36 hours but we will know more after we examine the bones.”

Their unexpected encounter had turned into a collaborative investigation, as they worked together to piece together the puzzle of the victim's identity and the circumstances surrounding their demise. [Yes, someone should write that part.] As they delved deeper into the case, Brennan's scientific approach complemented Holmes' deductive reasoning, resulting in a formidable partnership. Despite their differences in methodology and demeanor, they shared a mutual respect for each other's abilities, recognizing the value each brought to the investigation. Together, Temperance Brennan and Sherlock Holmes embarked on a quest for truth amidst the wildflowers of Austin, unraveling secrets hidden beneath the beauty of nature. [Show. Don’t tell.]

And as they uncovered the dark truths lurking beneath the surface, they forged a bond forged in the crucible of investigation—a bond that transcended the boundaries of time and space. They discovered the rare pleasure of being in the presence of an intelligence and passion for truth equal to—if not surpassing—their own. For in the world of crime-solving, where logic met intuition, anything was possible.

[Editing stops here.]

However, before they could make any further progress, a sudden commotion erupted nearby. Without warning, masked assailants emerged from the surrounding foliage, their faces shrouded in darkness.

Brennan and Holmes barely had time to react before they were surrounded and forcibly restrained, their hands bound behind their backs.

“What's the meaning of this?” Holmes demanded, his voice laced with authority.

But the assailants remained silent, their intentions shrouded in mystery. Before Brennan or Holmes could formulate a plan of action, they were blindfolded and whisked away, leaving behind the tranquil beauty of the Wildflower Center for the unknown depths of danger that awaited them.

As the blindfolds were secured over their eyes and the kidnappers led them away, Temperance Brennan and Sherlock Holmes exchanged a glance, wordlessly communicating their resolve to overcome whatever obstacles lay ahead. 

Despite their precarious situation, Brennan's analytical mind raced, cataloging every detail of their surroundings—the texture of the ground beneath her feet, the sounds of their captors' footsteps, the faint scent of the surrounding foliage. Holmes, ever observant, listened intently, his sharp senses attuned to the slightest nuances of their environment. With each step, he pieced together clues, formulating a plan of action. 

As they were ushered into what seemed to be a dimly lit building, Brennan and Holmes remained outwardly calm, biding their time until an opportunity presented itself.  Their chance came when they were left momentarily unattended in a small room, their captors seemingly preoccupied with other matters.

With practiced efficiency, Brennan began to work on loosening her restraints, her fingers deftly manipulating the knots. Holmes, meanwhile, surveyed their surroundings, searching for any potential means of escape. His keen intellect assessed every angle, every possibility, until finally, he spotted a ventilation grate near the ceiling.

“Up there,” he murmured to Brennan, nodding towards the grate. “I believe that may be our way out.” 

Brennan nodded in agreement, her fingers working faster as she redoubled her efforts to free herself from her bindings. With a final tug, Brennan succeeded in loosening her restraints, silently urging Holmes to follow suit. As Holmes wriggled free, they exchanged a silent nod of determination before Brennan hoisted herself up towards the ventilation grate, her muscles straining with effort. With Holmes' assistance, she managed to pry the grate open, revealing a narrow passage beyond.

Without hesitation, they crawled through the cramped space, their hearts pounding with anticipation as they edged closer to freedom. Emerging on the other side, they found themselves in a deserted corridor, the faint sounds of their captors' voices echoing in the distance. With stealth and precision, they navigated their way through the labyrinthine corridors, avoiding detection at every turn.

Finally, they reached the building's exit, the cool night air washing over them as they stepped out into the open. With a shared glance of triumph, Brennan and Holmes knew that they had outsmarted their captors, turning the tables on those who had sought to imprison them. As they disappeared into the darkness, their minds already racing towards their next move, they knew that no obstacle was insurmountable when faced with the combined intellect and determination of Temperance Brennan and Sherlock Holmes.

For in the world of crime-solving, where danger lurked at every turn, their partnership was an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.  And as they vanished into the night, they left behind a trail of mystery and intrigue, their adventure far from over.

(To be continued...)

[Not to be continued. This is worse than Neil Simon’s Murder by Death.]

Trite as the product is, it is no worse than some that I read for the ArmadilloCon Flash Fiction contests last year (2023) and this (2024). It leaves me wondering whether some of those were also the products of AIs. Like ChatGPT, a couple of them displayed the same flaw with a significant descriptor (adjective or adverb) that was repeated. My understanding is that flash fiction for a writing class is produced “hot pen”—you sit and write here and now and you have 45 minutes. In this case, however, the writers had at least one week’s notice. If they were paying attention they had two weeks. Either way, it was plenty of time to review the work, catch mistakes, and submit a better draft. Few seemed to have given the assignment that much care. Only now that I have worked with ChatGPT do I question who actually wrote the flash fiction that I judged for ArmadilloCon. And that raises other, deeper, problems.

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FanFic by ChatGPT (Part 2)

User: Write a 1250 word scene in which the character Charlie Epps from the TV show NUMB3RS meets the character Abby Sciuto from the television show NCIS.

ChatGPT

Title: “When Math Meets Forensics: A Meeting of Minds”

The fluorescent lights flickered overhead as Charlie Epps, the brilliant mathematician from CalSci, walked through the bustling corridors of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) headquarters. He adjusted his glasses and glanced at the slip of paper in his hand, double-checking the room number. Today was the day he was meeting Abby Sciuto, the renowned forensic scientist he had heard so much about.

Entering the forensics lab, Charlie was immediately struck by the eclectic mix of equipment and the vibrant personality of Abby herself. With her raven-colored hair in pigtails, tattoos peeking out from beneath her lab coat, and vibrant energy, she was a force to be reckoned with.

Abby looked up from her workbench, a wide grin spreading across her face as she spotted Charlie. “Hey there! You must be Charlie. I've heard so much about you!”

Charlie returned her smile, feeling a surge of excitement at meeting someone with such a reputation for brilliance in her field. “Yes, that's me. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Abby.”

They exchanged pleasantries before diving into the reason for Charlie's visit. He had been brought in to consult on a particularly perplexing case involving a series of cryptic messages left at crime scenes.

As they settled in, Abby pulled up the case file on her computer screen, displaying gruesome images of crime scenes and evidence. “So, Charlie, what do you think? Can you help us make sense of these messages?”

Charlie leaned in, studying the images intently. “Hmm, this is fascinating. It looks like there's a pattern to these messages, almost like they're encrypted.”

Abby nodded eagerly. “Exactly! That's what we thought too. But so far, we haven't been able to crack it. That's where you come in.”

Charlie's mind raced as he analyzed the data before him. He began scribbling equations on a nearby whiteboard, muttering calculations under his breath. Abby watched in awe as he worked, marveling at his brilliance.

After what seemed like hours of intense concentration, Charlie finally straightened up, a triumphant gleam in his eye. “I think I've got it.”

Abby leaned in closer, eager to hear his findings. “What did you discover?”

Charlie pointed to the whiteboard, where a series of numbers and symbols were scrawled in his neat handwriting. “Each message contains a hidden code, but it's not a traditional encryption method. Instead, it's based on a mathematical sequence.”

Abby furrowed her brow, trying to follow along. “A mathematical sequence?”

Charlie nodded. “Yes, exactly. It's a variation of the Fibonacci sequence, but with a twist. By applying certain mathematical operations to each number in the sequence, we can decode the messages.”

Abby's eyes widened in understanding. “That's incredible! But how did you figure it out?”

Charlie grinned. “It's all about recognizing patterns and thinking outside the box. Math is the language of patterns, and once you learn to speak it fluently, you can unlock all sorts of secrets.”

Abby nodded, impressed by his explanation. “You're amazing, Charlie. I never would have thought to approach it like that.”

Charlie shrugged modestly. “It's just a matter of perspective. We all have our own unique way of looking at the world, and that's what makes collaboration so powerful.”

Abby smiled, feeling a newfound sense of appreciation for the power of collaboration. “Well, I'm certainly glad you're on our team. With your help, I'm confident we can crack this case.”

Charlie returned her smile, grateful for the opportunity to work alongside someone as brilliant and passionate as Abby. “Likewise, Abby. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership.”

As they continued to work together, bouncing ideas off each other and delving deeper into the intricacies of the case, Charlie couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement building within him. This was more than just a consulting gig; it was a chance to push the boundaries of what was possible and make a real difference in the world.

Together, Charlie Epps and Abby Sciuto were a formidable team, combining their unique talents and perspectives to unravel the mysteries that lay before them. And as they delved deeper into the case, they knew that nothing could stand in their way.

For when math met forensics, anything was possible.

(722 words)

 

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FanFic by ChatGPT (Part 1)

Write a 1250 word scene in which the character of investigator Timothy McGee from the television show NCIS meets the character of Amita Ramanujan from the television show NUMB3RS.

ChatGPT

Title: "Bridging the Gap: When Investigator McGee Meets Amita Ramanujan"

 

Special Agent Timothy McGee, known for his tech-savvy prowess, stepped into the bustling corridors of California Institute of Science (CalSci). He adjusted his glasses and glanced at the room number written on the slip of paper in his hand. Today marked the day he would meet Amita Ramanujan, the brilliant mathematician he had heard so much about.

Navigating through the maze-like halls, McGee finally arrived at the designated room. Inside, he found Amita, surrounded by mathematical equations on a whiteboard, deeply engrossed in her work.

"Amita Ramanujan?" McGee asked, extending his hand with a friendly smile.

Amita turned, her face lighting up with recognition. "Yes, that's me! You must be Timothy McGee from NCIS. It's a pleasure to meet you."

They exchanged pleasantries before diving into the reason for McGee's visit. He had been brought in to consult on a complex case involving cybercrime, and he needed Amita's expertise in mathematics to help crack it.

As they settled in, Amita pulled up the case file on her computer screen, displaying lines of code and digital footprints left by the cybercriminal. "So, Timothy, what do you think? Can you help us track down this hacker?"

McGee leaned in, studying the code intently. "Hmm, this is quite sophisticated. It looks like the hacker is using a combination of encryption techniques to cover their tracks."

Amita nodded, her mind already racing with possibilities. "Yes, I noticed that too. But there's something about the pattern of their attacks that seems familiar."

McGee raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her observation. "Familiar? How so?"

Amita explained, her words tumbling out in a rush of excitement. "Well, the frequency and timing of the attacks follow a mathematical sequence, almost like they're part of a pattern. If we can identify the underlying formula, we might be able to predict their next move."

McGee nodded, impressed by her insight. "That's an interesting theory. But how do we go about finding this formula?"

Amita smiled, her eyes sparkling with determination. "We start by analyzing the data and looking for recurring patterns. Once we identify the pattern, we can use mathematical algorithms to extrapolate the formula."

McGee grinned, feeling a surge of excitement at the prospect of unraveling the hacker's scheme. "Sounds like a plan. Let's get started."

Together, they delved into the data, their minds working in perfect harmony as they searched for the elusive pattern. Hours flew by as they poured over lines of code and algorithms, each step bringing them closer to unraveling the mystery.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of intense concentration, Amita let out a triumphant cry. "I think I've found it!"

McGee rushed to her side, his heart pounding with anticipation. "What did you discover?"

 

Amita pointed to the screen, where a series of numbers and symbols were displayed. "This is the pattern I was talking about. It's a variation of the Fibonacci sequence, but with a twist. By applying certain mathematical operations to each number in the sequence, we can decrypt the hacker's code."

McGee's eyes widened in amazement. "That's incredible! But how did you figure it out?"

Amita shrugged modestly. "It's all about recognizing patterns and thinking outside the box. Math is the language of patterns, and once you learn to speak it fluently, you can unlock all sorts of secrets."

McGee nodded, feeling a newfound sense of respect for her expertise. "Well, I'm certainly glad you're on our team. With your help, I'm confident we can track down this hacker and bring them to justice."

Amita smiled, feeling a sense of pride at being able to contribute to the investigation. "Likewise, Timothy. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership."

As they continued to work together, bouncing ideas off each other and delving deeper into the intricacies of the case, McGee couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement building within him. This was more than just a consulting gig; it was a chance to push the boundaries of what was possible and make a real difference in the world.

Together, Timothy McGee and Amita Ramanujan were a formidable team, combining their unique talents and perspectives to unravel the mysteries that lay before them. And as they delved deeper into the case, they knew that nothing could stand in their way.

For when technology met mathematics, anything was possible.

(743 words)

 

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