iPhones and power outages

The power in central Halifax died around two hours ago.  I had my iphone nearby, and used it to find my flashlight. Then I called a friend to talk about the value of spare batteries, and the nice dark section of the city. I then went for a walk, looking at the newly revealed stars, listening to a podcast, and looking for the light.

When I found it, at the nearest video store, I wandered around a little, then looked for the Hydro website/phone number. I found the first, which had the second. Luckily there was a mobile version of the web page, which I used to suss out the situation. I tried Twitter, which kept me up to date on the situation. I then continued to browse, and then checked again. The Hydro workers had fixed the main situation, so I walked home, but with fewer stars visible. I continued to listen to my podcast, and checked updates on Twitter on the way back. I also checked the local news and online radio through the phone.

On arrival , things looked back to normal, with one power bump, but otherwise fine for now.

I like my iPhone.

Star Trek writers

Star Trek: significant writers

This is a list of script writers for the original series that I personally consider to be recognised science fiction writers. I think that most of the scriptwriting since then has been by people who don’t write science fiction for a living, which may argue for the higher level of science fiction in their stories in the original three seasons, especially regarding social issues and cultural change as opposed to action and adventure.

Maybe the serious science fiction writers are concentrating more on movie deals?

• Robert Bloch, who also wrote the story for psycho. He was a horror, fantasy and science fiction writer, as well as a crime writer. He won the Hugo Award (SF), the World Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. He wrote the episodes What are Little Girls Made Of, Catspaw, and Wolf in the Fold. These were entertaining, with a nice flavour of horror mixed into the last two.
• George Clayton Johnston, who co-wrote Logan’s Run, and a number of Twilight Zone episodes. We wrote The Man Trap. I would not call this a great episode.
• Richard Matheson, who wrote I am Legend and a number of Twilight Zone episodes, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. He wrote The Enemy Within, one of the great episodes. This episode addresses the issue of how essential a person’s darker side has a role in her/his life.
• Theodore Sturgeon, a highly influential write who won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards. We wrote Shore Leave and Amok Time, the latter of which is one of the great episodes.
• Harlan Ellison, probably the pre-eminent science fiction short story writer of the twentieth century, and a highly prolific screen writer. He wrote my favourite episode, The City on the Edge of Forever. Although largely modified from the original story, it is a touching tale of duty versus love, on more than one level. According to Wikipedia, he has won 11 Hugos, 4 Nebulas, 6 Bram Stokers, and 18 Locus Awards.
• Jerome Bixby, who wrote the classic short It’s a Good Life (used in the Twilight Zone and the Twilight Zone movie), co-wrote the story behind the Asimov movie Fanastic Voyage, and wrote the great Star Trek episodes Mirror, Mirror and Day of the Dove. He also did Requiem for Methuselah and By Any Other Name, both of which were good.
• Norman Spinrad, a well respected writer and two-time president of the Science Fiction Writers Association. He wrote The Doomsday Machine. At the time, this was not a cliche issue.
• Frederic Brown wrote a classic SF short story called Arena, which was the basis for the Star Trek episode of the same name. The tv episode was okay, but the short story was wonderful. He was a well respected writer from the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
• Last but not least, David Gerrold, who wrote The Trouble with Tribbles. He also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for the novelette The Martian Child. Finally, he wrote a wonderful comedic SF novel with Larry Niven called the Flying Sorcerers.

Bradbury again

When you read his work, there is always some poetry and magic in his writing. And then you come across a passage that hits you in the heart and the head at the same time, evoking feelings and images as none other can.

From Banshee (1984)-

”She had a face of snow, cut from that same white cool marble that makes the finest Irish women; a long swan neck, a generous if quivering mouth, and eyes a soft and luminous green. So beautiful were those eyes and her profile against the blown tree branches, that something in me turned, agonized, and died. I felt that killing wrench men feel when beauty passes and will not pass again. You want to cry out: Stay, I love you. But you do not speak. And the summer walks away in her flesh, never to return”

“I tried to look through her eyes and thought: my God, has it always been this way, forever some man in that house, forty, eighty, a hundred years ago! Not the same man, no, but all dark twins, and this girl lost on the road, with snow in her arms for love, and frost in her heart for comfort, and nothing to do but whisper and croon and mourn and sob until the sound of her weeping stilled at sunrise but to start again with the rising of the moon.”

From The Toynbee Convector (1988)-

“Stiles touched another button and the machine lit up like a cavern of spider webs. It breathed in years and whispered forth remembrance. Ghosts were in its crystal veins. A great god spider had woven its tapestries in a single night. It was haunted and it was alive. Unseen tides came and went in its machinery. Suns burned and moons hid their seasons in it. Here, an autumn blew away in tatters; there, winters arrived in snows that drifted in spring blossoms to fall on summer fields.”

One of these stories shows how a lie can be salvation itself.