Letter Q: Quotation (on Science Fiction Romance Brigade: Both Sides Now)

Q is for quotations, and that is what two of the regular blog hops I belong to are all about: quotations from one’s own work, published or not. Today’s quotation is a continuation of last week’s, also on Science Fiction Romance Brigade Presents, and is from my work in progress tentatively titled Both Sides Now. Click on the logo above for information on the blog hop and links to other authors.

Kevi turned his head from side to side, trying to locate the source of the pain, but it was somewhere beyond the walls of hay. He stretched cautiously, testing his body’s responses. No real pain. His back was straight, which was a blessed relief, and while his hands and feet were distorted and tender, they seemed to be there and whole.

He struggled to a sitting position, in the process discovering that he was wearing a kind of long loose shirt, and then swung his feet to the floor. He had to suppress a gasp as he tried to put weight on them—the wounds had closed, but some of the broken bones had healed crooked. A quick inspection of his hands confirmed that they were in even worse shape.

Under normal circumstances, that would be no problem. He was a Healer, and part of his talent lay in his ability to realign and force knitting of even small fragments of bone. But Healing required both esper and empathic abilities, and Zhaim’s first move had been a massive overdose of hiControl. That didn’t affect empathic abilities or shielding, but his esper talents would be non-existent until he could get the antidote—and that was unlikely to be available on Horizon.

Letter P: Polar Bears (Jarn’s Journal)

Year 10 Day 10

The denser ice, to the north and west of where I first encountered it, is indeed almost continuous, with only narrow (and often fast-closing) lanes of open water. It even looks like snow-covered land, with rough ridges as well as flat plains of ice. There are animals living on top of the ice, too, though most of those I have seen until today were obviously at least in part aquatic, with streamlined bodies, flippers rather than legs, and only a hint of land adaptations. I suspect they live on fish, which in turn live under the ice.

Photo Source

I’ve glimpsed others though. White foxes, for instance, though with the white on white color I’ve not been sure of them. Then today ….

Remember the animals I called bears, on land? Today I saw a white one, slightly more streamlined than the massive brown beasts I saw on land, but with the same powerful jaws and teeth and if possible even larger. And they are swimmers; I saw one swim across one of the lanes of open water, drying itself afterwards by rolling in the snow on the other side. From what I saw they hunt the seals I saw earlier, though the hunt I saw was not very successful. Still, this is not a predator I would want to face in its own environment!

Letter O: OLLI

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, “A Health Club for Your Mind,” has been in Fairbanks almost since the turn of the century. Originally Adventures in Lifelong Learning and then Alaska Lifelong Learning, the name was changed to Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in 2006, after the Osher foundation provided funding. The program is currently part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Summer Sessions, open to students 50 years and older.

Members celebrated OLLI’s 10th Anniversary in 2010. There are now 800 members in OLLI.

All instructors are volunteers, and many are current or former UAF faculty members. Most are delighted by the eagerness and willingness to ask questions that characterize OLLI students. I know I was, when I taught a class in basic genetics! As a general rule there are four sets of 4-week classes a year, in March, April, October and November. This spring I’m taking seven: iMovie and iDVD, Beringia, and Ancient Sumer in March; Alaska’s 1964 Earthquake, Climate Variability and Change, iPhone and iPad, and Alaska Weather in April.

As you can see I tend to go for the science and computer classes, but those are far from the only ones taught. There are classes in art and handiwork, computer applications, exercise and recreation, films and photography, healthy living, history and politics, literature languages and philosophy, science and mathematics, and social studies. In addition there are field trips and special interest groups.

There are OLLI programs across the country. All are university affiliated and received funding from the Osher Foundation, but they are run independently. Is there one where you live?

Letter N: Quotes from Andre Norton

N is for Andre Norton (1912-2005) who was one of the first science fiction authors I discovered (in grade school.) She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, first to be SFWA Grand Master, and first inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. She heavily influenced my own writing. N is also for Nik, a character in Homecoming and Tourist Trap.

“By surviving severe danger together, we have learned to cooperate.” Andre Norton, The Magestone. Merith of the Dales (who have been at war with Alizon) in her farewell to Kasarion.

“May the Light strengthen our resolve, and ward us against the Dark.” Andre Norton, The Magestone. Continuation of Merith’s farewell to Kasarion.

“Apply your strength to some task that can be accomplished.” Andre Norton, The Magestone. Part of Merith’s thought of what Doubt, her long-dead fiancé, would have said. The whole quote is: “When you have more questions than you have answers, and when most of the questions demand time to be resolved, there is no use in wasting energy by fretting. Apply your strength to some task that can be accomplished, and let time furnish the facts you need to deal with the excess questions.”

“Patience was one of the female’s weapon-shields.” Andre Norton, The Warding of Witch World. Liara’s thought. She lives in the extreme paternalistic and warrior society of Alizon.

“Trust is something which can never be sworn to.” Andre Norton, The Warding of Witch World. Singala’s advice to Liara.

“With a common goal even enemies swear battle-oaths.” Andre Norton, The Warding of Witch World. Merith is telling Liara what her brother Kasarion has already learned.

“There are decisions you can legitimately make for him, but this is not one of them.” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Roi’s father Lai is trying to make a medical choice for him, and Nik, the physician and Lai’s half-brother, intervenes.

Letter K: Kevi (on Science Fiction Romance Brigade)

Click on the logo above to get links to other SFR Brigade snippets. This one is from a WIP, Both Sides Now

He was Kevi. Roi knew perfectly well who he really was, but the other name was so deeply set in his first awakening that he knew he himself must have set it there, deeply, before he slept.

Further, he had no idea of where he was or how he had gotten there. That argued that he’d been confident enough of his safety that he’d gone into HealSleep. Which in turn meant that he was no longer in Zhaim’s hands.

So why had he awakened with someone else’s pain ringing in his head?

The scent of hay and grain was heavy in the air, and he lay on something that, while not soft, molded itself to his body and shifted slightly when he moved. He opened his eyes to see stacked hay bales, dim in the light of a rechargeable hand light, and found he was lying on piled sacks of grain, with a sheet tucked around them to make a bed. Fine. How had he come here?

It took a little thinking to recover his rescue from Zhaim’s hands, and Terry. How had he ever forgotten that youngster, even for a moment? Then Mikal and Doc, doing what they could to get his shattered body to safety, even though they had no reason to think of him as anything but an enemy, and finally the explosion of Zhaim’s rage as he found Roi missing. He had a faint memory of trying to tell Terry what to expect, no longer able to keep himself conscious, and then nothing.

Letter J: Jarn (Jarn’s Journal)

For most of the last four years my Friday posts have been taken from Jarn’s Journal, a Journal allegedly recorded roughly 125,000 years ago by a human-like alien named Jarn who was stranded in Africa. So who was Jarn? To what extent is he representative of his species?

Jarn is a R’il’nian. (The apostrophes indicate palataliztion of the preceding consonant.) The R’il’nai are very human-like in external appearance but differ in two important ways. First, they do not age. This does not mean that they are immortal, though life spans of several millennia are not uncommon. It does mean that the females are very infertile and show secondary characteristics associated with childbearing (hip width, breasts) only when approaching fertility, about once a century.

Second, the R’il’nai have a range of mental abilities (telepathy, teleportation, levitation, telekinesis, perception) and emotional abilities (ability to share the emotions and sensory impressions of other beings) though these vary a great deal between individuals. However, they are not very creative, especially regarding artistic creation.

Jarn has been little interested in training these abilities; he has been much more interested in engineering. Specifically, he has been a starship designer. Unfortunately his latest creation left out a few standard safety features, with the result that he crash-landed on Earth during a test flight.

Luckily the escape capsule computer survived the impact, and he is learning to use his mental abilities (which are subject to the conservation of mass-energy and momentum) from the computer.  He has also made contact with our remote ancestors (early sapiens) in Africa, and is occupying himself with exploring the new planet on which he finds himself.

Jarn’s Journal is the very early backstory of the Jarnian Confederation, which is the backdrop for most of my science fiction writing. His story is being transferred to my author site as it is written.

Letter I: Ice Sculpture

Each year, from late February through most of March, IceAlaska hosts a kids’ park (ice slides, climb-on ice sculptures, ice mazes and skating rinks.) The same venue plays host to the BP World Ice Art Championships. These slide shows display the 2014 competition pieces.

The Single Block competition gives teams of 1 or 2 people a single block of “Alaska Diamond” ice, roughly 8′ x 5′ x 3′ harvested from O’Grady Pond Too. Heavy equipment is used only for the initial placement of the block. Power tools may be used, and the teams are allowed 2 1/2 days to work. Only the ice, ice shavings, and water (as glue) may be part of the finished sculpture.

 

Love in Motion: First Place Single-block Realistic

Carnival: First Place Abstract and Artists’ Choice single-block Abstract

Teaching Breaching: 2nd Place Realistic

Windy Day: 2nd Place Abstract

Conformity: 3rd Place Realistic

Flight to the Sun: 3rd Place Abstract

Fairy Tale: 4th Place Realistic

Peaceful Flight: 4th Place Abstract

Lunch: 5th Place Realistic and Artists’ Choice Single-block Realistic

Queen of the Forest: 5th Place Abstract

Self Made Man

Aurora Harp

Curiosity Killed the Cat?

“Resting Grizzley” by B.D. Berry

Hello

Goliath Defender of the Night

Behold

Reminder of the Past

Pass Through of Time and Space

Safety

Tree of Life

Arctic Winter Dreams

Below the Surface

The Second Brain

Born to be Wild

Arapaima

Brick House

Progression

God of Fire

Viral

Connie’s Spirit

The One That Got Away

I Love You!

To Face a Fear, To Be Set in the Clear

Metamorphosis Of Aisha’s Dream

Strong

Creation Station

Born to be Wild

Which One is Yours?

Anybody Out There?

Yearning

Full Circle

The Multi-Block competition gives teams of up to 4 people 10 blocks of ice, each roughly 6′ x 4′ x 3′. (The 3′ in each case may vary; it’s the thickness of the pond ice.) Heavy equipment and skilled operators are available to move and stack carved and uncarved ice. The teams have 5 1/2 days to work.

Maidens of Birch Tree: 1st place Multi-block Realistic

Heavy Duty Dream: 1st Place Multi-block Abstract

Soul of the Moon, 2nd Place Realistic

Gone With The Wind: Artists’ Choice and 2nd Place Abstract

Adventure Book: Attists’ Choice and 3rd Place Multi-block Realistic

Emotion, 3rd Place Abstract

The Last Dance: 4th Place Realistic and my favorite.

Blessing of the Horse Year, 4th Place Abstract

Wind of Childhood, 5th Place Realistic

Morning Coffeek 5th Place Abstract

Governor’s Choice: Aurora Dreams

Guardian of the Deep

Nature’s Judge and Jury

It Takes Guts to Get Out of the Ruts

Cocked

Imagine Dragons

Letter H: Quotes from Robert A. Heinlein

H is for Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), one of the greatest science fiction writers of the 20^th Century. I read his juveniles in grade school, and very early published stories such as “By his Bootstraps” (under a pseudonym) in my father’s collection of back issues of Astounding Science Fiction. I have to say I prefer his early work, especially the Future History stories, and these are the sources for the quotations below. So here are the contexts for the quotes I have tweeted and placed on my facebook pages between April 3 and April 9, 2014.

“Glad did I live and gladly die.” Stevenson, quoted by Heinlein in “Requiem” (in The Past Through Tomorrow) written in 1940, long before the first man walked on the moon. The beginning of the story is better than any context I could give:

On a high hill in Samoa there is a grave. Inscribed on the marker are these words:

“Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I lay me down with a will!

“This be the verse you grave for me:
‘Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.’”

These lines appear another place – scrawled on a shipping tag torn from a compressed-air container, and pinned to the ground with a knife.

And the ground is the ground of the moon.

 “Americans are considered crazy anywhere in the world.” Robert A. Heinlein (1941), “—And He Built a Crooked House—” in 6xH. And the Americans say “it’s the Californians; the Californians say “it’s the Los Angelinos;” the Los Angelinos say “it’s Hollywood;” the residents of Hollywood say “it’s the canyonites.” And it all winds up with one architect who tries to build a four-dimensional house.

“Why should we be held down by the frozen concepts of our ancestors?” Robert A. Heinlein, “—And He Built a Crooked House—”The architect, Teal, voicing his ideas of architecture.

“You are a man; you should anticipate such things. Earthquakes!” Robert A. Heinlein, “—And He Built a Crooked House—” Mrs. Bailey, complaining of California after she has talked her husband (to whom she is speaking) into moving there.

“What chance has a thirty-year-old married man, used to important money, to change his racket?” Robert A. Heinlein, “Space Jockey, in The Past Through Tomorrow. The man in question is a spaceship pilot but the sentiment –published in 1947—sounds very timely today.

“Men—grown-up men, not mamas’ boys—had to break away from their mothers’ apron strings.” Robert A. Heinlein, “Space Jockey” in The Past Through Tomorrow. Phyllis, the wife of the spaceship pilot above, rethinking her objections to his career. Note that this story was written at a time when men, after WWII, were trying to push their wives back into housewifely roles.

“Headaches aren’t hard to Heal.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Well, maybe not hard for Roi, who has the esper talent of Healing!

Letter E: Eversummer

Click on the logo above to find links to other SFR Snippets.

Eversummer is the planet (in Tourist Trap) on which Marna must try to stop a plague. This is her first impression of the planet.

The planet’s name, Marna thought, must have been picked out by a publicity agent.  Everspring would have been more accurate, or Everfall, or perhaps Constancy.  Maybe even Boredom.

The planet, with its rotational axis almost perpendicular to its orbital plane, had no seasons.  The poles were bitterly cold, glaciated wastelands where the sun forever rolled around the horizon.  The equatorial belt was an unchanging steam bath, the permanent home of daily tropical thunderstorms, varied by hurricanes along its poleward borders.  The desert belts, inevitable result of the conflict between the planet’s rotation and its unequal heating by its sun, were broad and sharply defined, with no transition zones where the rains came seasonally.  The temperate zones, between desert and polar ice, were swept year round by equinoctial storms, varied only by occasional droughts.  No monsoons, no seasonal blanket of snow to protect the dormant land, no regular alternation of wet and dry seasons.

All of the settled planets Marna had known or studied—long-lost R’il’n itself, Riya, Central, Falaron, Kovee, Earth—had axial tilts between fifteen and thirty degrees, and a regular progression of seasons.  Those seasons might be subtle in the tropics, but they were present.  And she was beginning to think they were a lot more important than she had ever realized.

Letter D: Drift Ice (Jarn’s Journal)

Year 10 Day 6

Drift Ice!

Photo Source

I saw a little floating ice yesterday, but it was near the end of the day and in rather small pieces. Today ice grew steadily more common as I flew north, until most of the water was covered with flat pans of ice, ice with cracks, ice ridges where two sheets of ice have collided, and a few irregular masses of ice that might have broken off glaciers. From space, as I first saw it, this could well be an ice cap, albeit a floating one.

I’m not sure what shape it is. When I first saw ice, it seemed as much west as north of my flight. Perhaps I should map its extent? It would be easy enough to fly along with the denser pack to my right and the ocean water just visible to my left. I’d have to fly fairly high, but with the warm clothes I have now I could easily enough go high enough to see the edge.

At least as long as the weather stays as good as it was yesterday!