235

Original interior art by Edward Cartier

Every May, I like to celebrate the fiction of Jack Vance (May 2019). Here in 2020, I could not wait for May. Five years ago, I began reading several of Vance's short stories such as his 1950 story "New Bodies for Old". Here in 2020, I finally read "The Potters of Firsk", which was published seventy years ago in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1950.

Earlier this year, I mentioned that nuclear bombs were a hot (popular) topic for Sci Fi story tellers back in 1950.

Introductory blurb for "The Potters of Firsk" by Jack Vance.

interior art by Edward Cartier

Vance liked to work with clay and he experimented with creating his own glazes. That might explain why he wrote a story about alien potters, but his hobby does not explain why he would think to have the aliens incorporate the bodies of dead people into their pottery.

In the Ekcolir Reality.

Alternate Reality
I like to imagine that in another Reality, there was a female analogue of Jack Vance (named Joan) who might have written somewhat different stories. Possibly not so dark.

In "The Potters of Firsk", Vance quickly transports readers off to the distant planet Firsk, home of humanoid natives called the Mi-Tuun. With metal in short supply on Firsk, the Mi-Tuun use ceramics for many purposes. As illustrated for the story by Ed Cartier, the lady Mi-Tuun routinely go around topless (image top right on this page).

cremation urn, 007

One of my favorite science fiction novels is Assignment Nor'Dyren. In that story about an alien culture, the native humanoids of the planet Nor'Dyren inter their dead inside large pottery jars. There is a similar cultural practice on Firsk, which you need to read about for yourself.

 I led a sheltered life, so I think the first time I was exposed to the idea of a cremation urn was when I saw Diamonds Are Forever (1971). I was shocked to see bright shiny diamonds inside the urn when I was expecting to see ashes.

The potters of Firsk have a problem. They beautifully decorate their pottery with brightly colored glazes, but they don't have access to a nice yellow glaze. Vance had an interest in geology which readers find expressed throughout his stories. Vance cleverly decided to position the village of the potters of Firsk in a range of mountains, close to an active volcano. The potters liked to use heat from the volcano to fire their pottery.

A Feek (source)

Aliens?
Are the Mi-Tuun aliens or humans? Vance often imagined a future in which human explorers had spread from Earth to many distant planets of the galaxy. Some remote colonies then became cut-off from the rest of Humanity for thousands of years. This allowed the local humans to evolve into new humanoid forms, such as the Feek.

"The Potters of Firsk" is told from the perspective of Thomm, who works for the Department of Planetary Affairs. Thomm was once stationed in the coastal city of Penolpan, situated on the lone continent of Firsk.

cover art by Nicholas Bantock

On Firsk, the darkly-pigmented folk of Penolpan are described as "graceful, sensuous and relaxed" with a "quaint" culture. The city of Penolpan has a pleasant warm climate and is laced with a network of green canals. The Mi-Tuun cruise the canals in beautifully decorated boats which they sometimes take out to sea in order to fish. In contrast, the potters appear to be genetically distinct from the people of Penolpan. They are tall, large and have pale skin.

Vance often invented parasitic relationships between different peoples of his imaginary worlds. Probably the most memorable example of this is in his story Emphyrio, but his novel Wyst provides another case in point. The potters of Firsk have an odd social relationship with the people of Penolpan that includes trading their fine pottery for the bodies of the dead Mi-Tuun.

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Earle Bergey
and Rudolph Belarski

Cultural Dispute
While stationed on Firsk, Thomm had a lazy and foolish boss named Covill. Covill threatened to destroy the sacred volcano of the potters with a nuclear bomb. The potters of Firsk didn't like being threatened and so they worked out a deal with Thomm.

There is also a bit of a love story in "The Potters of Firsk". Thomm became enamored with a young woman from the city Penolpan named Su-Then. Thomm gallantly rescued Su-Then from the potters after they had abducted her. The bumbling Covill does not escape so easily from the devious potters.

the Institute

I'm glad I finally got around to reading "The Potters of Firsk". It contains, in embryonic form, some themes that Vance would later develop more fully in his novels. In "The Potters of Firsk", Thomm works for an organization that is known as the "System". Later, Vance developed other such galactic organizations including the Historical Institute.

Next: the May 2020 celebration of Jack Vance's fiction
Related Reading: August 2020 celebration of Vance

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Amazing

1934 - cover art by Howard Brown

Back when I decided to make Isaac Asimov a character in my Exode Saga, I faced the daunting task of learning about the life and times of Asimov. One particular mystery that needed investigation was how he decided that he wanted to become a doctor. In the end, I suppose we should all be happy that the doctor thing did not work out.

We know that Asimov grew up as an omnivorous reader; he read books that were available in the public library as well as the science fiction pulp magazines that were sold in the shop owned by his family. Many of those old magazines are now available to us by download over the internet, and one of the advantages of reading those old magazines is that they provide hints about the world beyond science fiction that Asimov was immersed in. One source of this cultural information is the advertisements that ran in the Sci Fi pulps.

1934

In the December 1934 issue of Astounding, there is an advertisement for Nacor. I don't particularly care about Nacor; there were many such frauds advertised in the old pulp magazines. I have to wonder if the science fiction genre could have come into existence without the financial support of scam artists. I've been able to determine that Nacor was being sold to people as far back as 1917. The "Nacor Medical Company" was eventually sent orders (by the FTC, in 1935) to stop their deceptive advertisements of this product (see this).

source

sex sells, nicotine addicts

Previously, the same concoction was marketed to the gullible as "Nature's Creation" (see above) and had been investigated by the American Medical Association in 1910. While on the topic of money-making scams, I also must wonder to what extent Asimov's family was supported through the depression years by selling tobacco products.

Asimov's old stories are full of characters who smoked tobacco. I wonder if Asimov felt any guilt over the fact that while growing up, he was fed and clothed off the profits of selling tobacco products to folks who were addicted to nicotine.

The End of Eternity

In The End of Eternity, here is how Asimov's character, Andrew Harlan, describes the value of advertisements: "These advertisements tell us more about Primitive times than the so-called news articles..."

Harlan is teaching ancient (20th century) history to another character, Cooper, who objects, "Isn't it rather disgusting the way these people blow their own horn? Who would be fool enough to believe a person's boasting about his own products?"

Interior art by William Dold.

interior art by William Dold.

In the December 1934 issue of Astounding, there was a story by John Campbell called "The Mightiest Machine". Supposedly this story by Campbell was widely read and influenced the work of people like Arthur Clarke (as mentioned here), but reading it here in 2020, I find it quite painful to slog through.

Unlike Edward E. Smith, who assumed the existence of a form of atomic power to propel his spacecraft (such as the Skylark), Campbell depicts future physicists as having failed to solve the atomic power problem. So how does Campbell move spacecraft into hyperspace? Using power from the sun, which is the titular "mightiest machine").

Interior artwork for
Skylark of Valeron. Festival
of imaginary technology.

By the way, one of Smith's Skylark stories is in the December 1934 issue of Astounding. In Smith's fictional universe you could travel through space at the speed of thought and there was always a force beam ready to be deployed for every emergency.

In Search of Amazing Aliens
What interests me most about "The Mightiest Machine" is the ancient astronauts plot thread. In this case, the "ancient astronauts" are not aliens, they are former residents of Earth (from a "lost continent") who went off into some parallel universe. I've previously blogged about Asimov's struggle to write stories featuring interesting aliens, a struggle which can be traced back to Campbell's own hangups.

"The Incredible Planet"

Star Wars
A big part of "The Mightiest Machine" is an endless war between the humans of this parallel universe and their arch rivals. Yawn. I'm not a fan of military Sci Fi.

Campbell went on to write a sequel to "The Mightiest Machine" that was called "The Incredible Planet". This book was compiled from a series of stories that Campbell could not publish in the pulp magazines. Here, our traveling heroes from "The Mightiest Machine" return from the parallel universe and while attempting to reach Earth, they find and visit another planet populated by humanoid aliens who are the last remnants of a crumbling civilization. The Earthlings provide advanced technology to the aliens that will presumably allow the suffering aliens to survive.

Isaac Asimov (right) and his mentor (Campbell, left)

Eventually, after having grown up reading Campbell's Sci Fi stories, Asimov met Campbell and received tutoring on how to craft his own science fiction stories. Asimov rebelled against Campbell's insistence that humans should always be depicted as superior to space aliens.

I suspect that Campbell was an inspiration for the young Isaac Asimov in several ways. One is that Campbell never completed his education. There were many challenges that stood in Asimov's path towards higher education. He was rejected from medical school. He was only granted admission to graduate school on a probationary basis. Asimov's graduate studies were interrupted by World War II.

The Case of the Superfluous Sedrons

Eventually, Asimov earned a PhD and became a university professor and teacher of science. After Asimov became a science (non-fiction) writer, he may have taught more science to Americans then anyone else in history. In contrast, during his career, Campbell may have promoted more pseudoscience than actual science.

In the Asimov Reality.
Original cover art by Robert Jones.
Other art by Michael Whelan.

I like to imagine that in the Asimov Reality, a "copy" of Isaac Asimov impersonated Campbell and took over as the editor of Astounding. After this "copy of Asimov" retired, he was still much in demand, as described in this fun little story.

Here in our Reality,  Asimov never did go to medical school, but that can't stop us from imagining an alternate Reality in which he did become an M.D.
Related Reading: the lost world Ver'la.
                             and another alternate Asimov.
Next: Uranium 235 and Jack Vance

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CC Complexity

"Knight" by AyyaSAP
Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License

Three months ago I challenged myself to create a new character for the Exode Saga. I'm now fairly happy with that character: Nirutam. However, Nirutam was/is something of a disposable character. I want some remnant of Nirutam to remain on Earth and as inspiration I'm using the image shown to the right on this page.

In my imagination, the image shown to the right makes me think of Dani, an artificial life copy of the positronic robot Daneel, who exists in the Final Reality. In my imagination, that's not a sword. After Nirutam dies, Dani finds a vial of infites that Nirutam wanted to be passed on to the Editor.

Change Challenge Complexity
What information might Nirutam try to pass along to the Editor after her death?

Dani with Nirutam's infites.

Nirutam might be particularly concerned with making sure that Dani does not remain on Earth after her death. Dani and Nirutam were on Earth, verifying that the terms of the Trysta-Grean Pact had been met. Dani and Nirutam represented the two opposed sides in an ancient conflict: the Interventionist bumpha and the more conservative pek.

Zeta Gohrlay
I'm also imagining that Zeta could play an important role in recognizing that Nirutam left behind some infites.

After Nirutam's death, the Editor would resume attending meetings of his science fiction club. On such an occasion, Zeta might accompany the Editor to town, with plans to do some shopping. They would make use of Nirutam's former residence in town.

Part of Nirutam's collection of bottles.

After shopping, Zeta goes to Nirutam's place for the first time. She is amused by Nirutam's eclectic style of decorating which mixed antique furnishings with pictures of galaxies, including images of Nirutam's home galaxy, Andromeda.

 Zeta see's Nirutam's collection of antique bottles, which the Editor had previously described as holding a supply of the special organic molecules that Nirutam needed in her diet.

However, Zeta notices one of the decorative bottles that has a familiar design. She suspects that it might contain nanites, but she is unable to open the bottle.

The infite bottle rests on Nirutam's mantle.

Dani arrives and he asks Zeta to open the bottle of nanites. He also suspects that it contains valuable infites from Nirutam. Having attended his writers club meeting, the Editor then arrives. Dani asks the Editor to open the bottle of infites, but Zeta telepathically warns him not to do so. Dani finally departs.

The Editor tries to open the bottle of infites, but he does not know how. Worried that Dani is still watching them, Zeta says that she is ready to return home, but she takes the infite bottle with them.

Zeta with the nanite bottle.
Image (Zetana) made using
"shadow hunter portrait 6"
by Gretchen Byers

A few days later, Zeta admits that there is a way to open the bottle. It is designed to recognize the unique Asterothrope dental pattern. As a tryp'At, the editor has fewer teeth than most Earthlings. He bites the top of the bottle and suddenly it opens, releasing a cloud of infites. The cloud of infites that comes out of the bottle seems to dissipate and the Editor is disappointed that they did not enter his body. Worried that the Editor has previously taken too many infites into his brain, Zeta is relieved. Only later do they learn that the infites took up residence inside their daughter (Tihri).

Next: the Amazing Asimov

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15 Years of Blogger

I started using Blogger 15 years ago, in April. I did some meta-blogging about the Blogger platform last year when I was feeling particularly unhappy with Google and their limited support for the Blogger service. In this blog post, I want to reflect on my blogging experience.

And Twitter, too

Twitter anniversary (click image to enlarge)

I also began using Twitter in April (of 2009). This blog, (wikifiction) was not my first Blogger blog. I started the wikifiction blog just about the same time when I began using Twitter. Almost all of my tweets are related to science fiction.

However, as can be seen in the image to the left, I do respond to other people's tweets that have nothing to do with science fiction.

Going Viral

April 5th - Traffic to the wikifiction blog

Here in 2020, as a science educator, I have felt the need to link some folks on Twitter to good sources of information about the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the people who visit this blog are from the USA, but today there is heavy traffic from Italy (see the map, to the right).

The wikifiction blog has a special connection to Italy. In the Exode Saga, I imagine that in the Ekcolir Reality, the Etruscan civilization dominated Europe, not Rome.

Map source: CSSE at Johns Hopkins University

Also, in my story "Fru'wu: Our Alien Prometheus", I imagine that the young Mary Shelley visited Italy during an outbreak of malaria. That experience brought her in contact with an alien visitor to Earth.

Little did I know while writing that story back in 2016 that Italy would become a hot spot for the Covid-19 pandemic. While viruses have been a topic of discussion here at this blog prior to 2020 (example), I've only made a few virus-related posts to Twitter (example).

A viral tweet, March 22nd 2020

While I'm linking to past tweets (Related: the end of Twitter.), I must say that Twitter has now made it more difficult to obtain a link to tweets. Now you need to click on the tweet's ˅ button and select "Embed Tweet". Then scroll up and you can see the link in a hidden display box.

There are a few options for how you can adjust the appearance of an embedded tweet. The image shown below is an example of the "dark" option.

I began tracking the number of Covid-19 cases in the USA on January 26th. The "dark" image shown below illustrates that towards the end of January my thoughts turned to my science fiction story Exodemic, which features the world-altering effects of a virus.

The dark side. January 28, 2020 viral tweet.

Here in 2020, my usual style for blog posts is to include many images along with the text. I have Blogger image archives (example) that go back to the old days when Picasa was used to collect all the images that are used in blog posts.

Now, I routinely link each blog post to a Google Photos album that contains imaginary book and magazine covers.

I've tried to make the old Picasa-generated albums visible in Google Photos, but that does not seem to have worked.

Ghost of Picasa: image "comments" from 2010.

The controls provided by Google for the old blog image archives (like this one) are totally non-intuitive. There is a "MANAGE ACTIVITY" button that when clicked displays the list of "image comments" that I added into Picasa back in 2010.

Bottom Line
After 15 years of using Blogger, I'm still confused by the interface. Right now, there is a "Try the new Blogger" button, but I generally wait until Blogger forces me to use their new versions.

                                                                                Dear Diary

the new Blogger

Even with all the trials and tribulations of using Blogger, it does provide a workable (and FREE) way to keep an online diary. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to migrate this blog to WordPress should Google terminate the Blogger service. 😔
Related Reading: the new Blogger

Next: a complication for Nirutam

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Interesting item from Twitter