“Let It Go”: A Writer Looks at Jack McDevitt’s novel Infinity Beach

Emily Brandywine went on an expedition to attempt to find proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, accompanied by Tripley, Kane, and Yoshi. The mission failed – or so they claimed. Emily was never seen again after the mission, leaving a younger clone-sister to grieve. A disastrous 'accident' involving the remaining three crew members made a small town unlivable and added Yoshi to the list of missing persons. Tripley and Kane kept their silence, taking their secrets to the grave. The next generation, comprised of Tripley's son, Kane's daughter, and Emily's clone-sister, deal with the fallout when Yoshi's last living relative starts asking questions and sharing his concerns with Kim Brandywine. What the expedition really found and what they did in response could potentially cause an interspecies war if the status quo is maintained. Yet, the only character who seems to consistently want to resolve the problem is Kim.

"Let it go."

These words are spoken by nearly every character with lines of dialogue in Infinity Beach. Every forward motion in pursuit of a goal is preceded by someone's request to drop the line of inquiry. The main protagonist, Dr. Kim Brandywine, wants to know what happened to her clone sister Emily after the woman disappeared. She also wants to fulfill their mutual dream of achieving first contact with an alien race. These are ambitious goals for a single person and they seemed to have consumed Emily's life, possibly even causing her death.

Kim, however, takes a more passive stance at the start of the story. She has the background and credentials of a physicist, but chooses to use her talent for persuasion as a fundraiser for the institute responsible for underwriting SETI expeditions and outreach projects. In this way, McDevitt shows her intense passion for the dream of confirming the human race is not alone in the universe (most of the rest of humanity is giving up on the idea), while providing an rationale as to why she has not started an investigation prior to the beginning of the narrative. When her old professor, Yoshi's relative, calls her and asks her to visit the deserted township where Yoshi went missing during the 'accident', she is reluctant to get involved. As far as she knew, Emily disappeared after taking a taxi from the spaceport and was the victim of street crime.

Once Kim and her pilot friend Solly visit the scene, she is no longer sure the old man is mistaken. She decides to investigate. After that decision, a minor one at this point, Kim encounters resistance. She gathers evidence (the record of the last voyage, a mural depicting an alien spaceship, and a sighting) and conducts interviews with Tripley's son and Kane's daughter. Kim meets resistance at every juncture. Kane's daughter wants to bury the past, Tripley's son wants to protect his father's reputation, and Kim's bosses at the Institute are feeling pressure to end this inquiry from powerful authorities, so they pile censure upon censure until she is fired and facing criminal charges.

Everyone has reasons for wanting to bury the investigation into what really happened on Emily's last voyage, even after finding definitive proof of Yoshi's death, alien artifacts, alien AI, and the original records showing a violent encounter with an alien microship. Only Kim, reluctant at first, but rediscovering her reasons for wanting to make contact in the first place, regains her clarity.

It is unusual to see the down-to-Earth lives of individuals in hard science fiction. Kim wants to keep her job, have a boyfriend, see her name in the history books, stay out of jail without going on the run, and find closure for her sister's death. She's even attracted to one man while in love with another – very human. Her opponents don't want their lives to change, so they see her investigation as a threat to the status quo. They ignore the flaws in their logic. Kane and Tripley suffered more for their silence than they would have had they reported the incident upon their return to Greenway; by covering up their unfortunate accident, they only highlighted the cover-up itself, creating an atmosphere of suspicion that followed them the rest of their lives. The authorities who learned of the alien encounter rationalized that no one was likely to travel through that specific sector of space again, so why should they warn anyone? They refused to consider that they did not know where the aliens came from, nor could they truly guarantee no future encounters with aliens who were going to regard humans as hostile.

Let it go. Ignore it and it will go away.

The only thing Kim let go throughout her journey was the alien artifact. She and her crew return the microship to the aliens with an apology and an offer to have a nonviolent first contact. It wasn't perfect, but it did work. Kim used the skill she knew best, persuasion, to reach her goal and take her place in history. The world moved on, resuming a variant of the status quo, with Kim regaining her job and freedom, getting a new boyfriend, and learning about the aliens. McDevitt ends the story with this restoration of order in everyday life and I think it works better than a grand sweeping statement of how the world changed.

“Not With a Bang”: A Writer’s Look at Greg Bear’s 1987 novel Forge of God

"This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper"

• T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men"
  

One lovely July evening, a scientist named Arthur sets up the telescope for his son Marty to view the stars. Before he has the chance to take a look, he gets a call from an astronomer friend, Chris Riley, who says Jupiter is missing a moon. His son tells him the same thing. He looks for himself, sees the hole where Europa belongs, unmistakable. Later that evening, Arthur's wife Francine asks him if the disappearance of Europa frightens him. He says it doesn't, though he is sympathetic about Francine's obvious fear. She compares it to a mountain suddenly missing, which Arthur says would scare him (because it is close to home).

That is the opening of Bear's apocalyptic story of alien judgment and subsequent destruction of Planet Earth. Arthur Gordon, the main protagonist, is the President's Science Advisor, but that is not his primary role. He is first and foremost a family man. His friend Henry, another renowned scientist, is a cancer patient who loves his wife and is heartbroken that she must watch him die. The geologist who finds the desert cone is with friends; they spend their time together, from initial adventure to forced confinement by government agents to staying with Stella when they could have gone their separate ways. Trevor Hicks, a former science writer turned novelist, starts his journey alone, but becomes involved with groups of scientists and government officials when he learns about the Guest (dying alien construct). Reuben, the 'spider aliens' representative, is also alone, but has strong ties to his family (he is grieving for his dead mother).

The only loner is the 'mad' President of the United States, who loses his advisors, his friends, and his wife when he succumbs to despair far too soon. In fact, it plays out like ritual shunning, in that he is only left alone after interventions by the people who leave him.

There are no riots, no screaming to the Heavens, no global anarchy. People try to figure out what it means that two alien objects, each containing a communicating life form, land less than three months after Europa disappears; they do this by talking it out with each other.

There are no right or wrong answers. Some people accept their fate with dignity, while others seek revenge. Both reactions are human.

We never find out why aliens who had no difficulties destroying a planet-sized moon in less than one week draw out Earth's destruction. The reader can only speculate as to the motives for designing biological machines to create a diversion while the planet-destroying fuse burns. Bear creates a mystery without solving it.

Yet, when I finished reading, I did not care about unanswered questions. I cared about the pacifists facing their doom in Yosemite. I cared about Marty's helpless rage, when he vowed to give Earth's destroyers a reason to fear humanity's children. The story starts with a father and son looking at the stars with unaccustomed fear and ends with a boy looking closer at the stars with a familiar fear. The world has ended, not with a bang but a whimper. Earth is gone, but humanity will never forget.

Bear jumps from viewpoint character to viewpoint character, yet he forges a strong emotional connection with each one. This way, he creates a global story that is also personal. I will remember this when I write.

This Is Not an Alien Love Story: a Writer Looks at Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris

Solaris is the story of humans attempting to understand a being so alien as to have no common frame of reference. Scientists attempt to understand its nature, only to fall victim to their own inner flaws.

Lem does not give the reader the alien's point of view at any point in the novel. The alien is the ocean of Solaris. At various times, it creates wave formations; they do not initiate contact, nor do they refuse. The alien is also responsible for the creation of the visitors to the Solaris station. These visitors are solid recreations of people who engendered the strongest feelings within the scientists assigned to study the entity. None of these alien outgrowths or byproducts reveals initial motivation of any kind. Physically, they are the creations of the alien entity, but their content is generated by the humans with whom they interact. Alien characters are a staple of science fiction, but the readers know they are alien through use of language and movement that demonstrate their confusion when faced with humans and hint at their motivation. Do they ask too many questions about table manners and troop movements? Do they smile when they should frown, or tilt their heads too far to one side? Does touch repel or fascinate them? These cues are all missing from the story and I think it is deliberate.

The viewpoint character Kris Kelvin is a psychologist, the latest in a long line and wide variety of scientists to study the living ocean of the planet Solaris. He represents humanity's values, the need to understand, to label and quantify, to solve mysteries because the unanswered question is far too threatening. He reads and refers to research done by others in the century since discovering a planet that defies the laws of physics. Solaris was uninteresting until it defied human reasoning by acting contrary to previous human observations, challenging scientists to find answers that explained this contradiction. The unusual orbit was explained by the living ocean, but the living ocean could not be quantified. It behaved neither as a wise spiritual being nor as an idiot savant, defying category. It could not be studied outside of its native habitat, confounding the biologists, ecologists, and others representing the hard sciences. Frustrated in their attempts to study its body, scientists turned to its mind.

Kelvin is the only character with an alien visitor who explains their mutual history and why this person was important. The other characters, driven to alcoholism, madness, and suicide through exposure to their visitors, kept their secrets. Kelvin faces his demons, confronts the reasons why his former lover's appearance causes him so much pain. This confrontation seems to change the nature of his visitor from someone who is a lesser reflection of the lover he remembers to his ideal of the person she would be had she lived to face this situation. Her content is still a creation of his mind, as her solution to her problem is suicide, the same solution his lover chose when faced with the pain of his rejection. There is nothing alien in her reaction; it is still his psychodrama.

Lem shows us the alien through negative spaces in the text, by showing us what it is not. He leaves us with the mystery.

Ending the world with optimism: a Writer Looks at Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End

Childhood's End is one of the best early examples of apocalyptic science fiction. It is the story of Earth's invasion by a supervisory alien race, the 'Golden Age' of life under the Overlords, followed by the mutation of all human offspring into bodiless parts of a hive mind. The final phase of the mutation causes a chain reaction that destroys the Earth, but humanity had already died out, save for one interstellar traveler who returned in time to die with his planet. Clarke violates one of the prime directives of fiction writing by using more summary than scene. He tells the story more than he shows the events. I believe this was deliberate, the only convincing way he could write the story of the end of the human race and put a positive spin on it.

Stormgren, George, and Jan provide the reader with human viewpoints within the text. Stormgren dies before the Overlords reveal their appearance, certainly long before the world ends. He is a sympathetic character who has shown a great deal of concern for others. Clarke also made him an old man, so that his sympathy for those who had trouble adjusting to the new world order wouldn't carry over to the 'lost' within the Golden Age. Had he been alive when humanity reached the endgame, the reader may have been distracted from the story's message. When Stormgren exits the narrative, he is still optimistic about the future under the rule of the Overlords, so much so that he is unconcerned about the nature of Supervisor Karellen's physical appearance. His confidence feeds the reader's.

George is the character who struggles with the dark side of the occupation, from the stunted creativity to the hidden agendas of the Overlords. He is the one who asks the tough questions. He is the one unhappy about the answers, about the extinction of his species. So it should come as no surprise that George is a jerk. He is rude and opinionated, prone to throwing tantrums over minor things, cheats on his wife in an age where staying married is not necessary or expected, and he finds the tasks of caring for his children annoy him. Jerk. The reader is positioned to not like George before he starts his dialogue with the Overlords, predisposed to side against him. If he is an example of humanity, maybe they need to go. When he describes his son and daughter's mutations, he is emotionally distant enough to lessen the impact of the loss of Earth's children. Had this section been shown through the viewpoint of his wife Jean, it would have been emotionally devastating. The reader may not have been quick to embrace the change, if seen through a mother's grief.

Like Stormgren, Jan is a man with a single dream. For Stormgren, it was one world government. For Jan, it was to visit another planet. When Supervisor Karellen said the stars were not meant for man, Jan rebelled, stowing away on a shuttle to the Overlord home world. He was gone from Earth for eighty years, during which time he was shown why man was not ready to see other worlds. Still, he had the single dream and no strong attachments to human beings who would still be alive upon his return. Once he got back to Earth, it was all over but the last days of packing. Karellen explained the plan and endgame to the one human being without a vested interest in their survival. He was ready to die, not bitter, even a bit curious. By this time, the mutated children were only marginally human, so could be viewed with the necessary scientific detachment. He was accepting of humanity's fate in a way that even Karellen couldn't achieve.

Humanity's children reached space and were made welcome. From Jan's point of view, it was a happy ending.

All You Need Is (Martian) Love – A Writer’s Look at Selected Stories from the SF Hall of Fame

Scientific romances like H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds inspired a fear of the 'alien other'. It stands to reason that at some point there would be a backlash against that attitude. Where Wells showed readers the power of fear and its effects on both individuals and civilizations, the authors of these five short stories show readers the awesome and terrible power of love in its four forms.

Agape is the selfless love for others. This kind of love saves an Earth explorer from certain death in Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" and the human race from genocide in Frederic Brown's "Arena". Agape is a difficult kind of love to depict on the page without alienating the reader. The capacity for self-sacrifice in order to aid a stranger is something we often aspire to but rarely achieve. Carson the protagonist of "Arena" is forced to take part in a fight to the death against an alien to decide which species will survive. Since the species includes his family, friends, and co-workers, Carson has a strong emotional motivation to win. Brown made Carson more heroic by showing the alien as driven by hatred to the exclusion of all else. The glimpses into the alien's mind allowed Carson to kill it without losing reader sympathy.

Carson's agape was easier to relate to than Tweel's. In "A Martian Odyssey" the narrator is the human being who owes his life to the alien called Tweel. Humans travel to Mars to explore and one of them gets lost, only to be saved by a Martian native. Jarvis, the narrator, is a likeable character and storyteller, an average man who had an extraordinary adventure. Tweel was obviously Jarvis' hero, but was too perfect. He learned English while Jarvis was struggling with basic Martian sounds. Tweel recognized the nature of every danger they faced before Jarvis even knew he was in danger. Tweel chose to face certain death with Jarvis rather than escape, since he could not take Jarvis with him. Unlike Carson, the reader gets no understanding of Tweel's motive for self-sacrifice beyond an implied 'can I live with myself if I leave this poor dumb thing to get killed'. Weinbaum's obstacle to reader Martian admiration is he gave the entire struggle to Jarvis, in my opinion.

Philia is the love between friends. This kind of love saves the human and alien races from mutually assured destruction in Murray Leinster's "First Contact". Tommy Dort, the protagonist, is another average man in extraordinary circumstances. Tommy is present when his ship encounters signs of an alien ship, causing a standoff; neither species can trust that the other species will not follow them back to their home world and lead an army to destroy it. Tommy's communication with Buck, his alien counterpart on the other ship, leads to philia and Tommy's conviction that the aliens are 'just like us'. This inspires the idea of trading ships, putting both races in equal danger, but showing equal levels of trust. Everybody lives because Tommy made a friend.

Storge refers to familial love. This kind of love leads to the murder of every member of the Earth rocket crew in Ray Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven". Another rocket ship filled with explorers from Earth lands on Mars, only to find a stereotypical American small town. In this small town, the crew finds solid versions of their dead families. Every crew member leaves the ship to reunite with their families and there is much rejoicing. In fact, it is only when he is ready for bed that the captain of the ship considers the possibility that the telepathic Martians assumed these forms to lull them into carelessness, making them easy to kill. His notion comes too late to save his life or those of the crew. Everybody dies because their love of family is stronger than both common sense and survival instinct.

Eros involves the emotional need to elicit physical love and affection from the one you love. This kind of love saves the Martian race from extinction and dooms the savior in Roger Zelazny's "A Rose for Ecclesiastes". This is not a first contact story, but it includes the first look at the culture outsiders were not allowed to see. The protagonist, Gallinger, is socially inept and misses subtle nuances in interactions. Thus, he is able to translate their holy verses into English language poetry without truly understanding their religious convictions. When he falls in love with the temple dancer, he softens toward others, but still doesn't learn to read 'people'. His love disappears because she is pregnant and he rescues her through a poetic reading of Ecclesiastes which trashes their belief that it is time for their race to die. It is a shock to discover this was foretold and the dancer was doing her duty when she was with him. He cannot live with that knowledge. Everyone lives, but not happily ever after.

Bradbury and Zelazny use the skepticism of their viewpoint characters to drop hints of what is really happening in the narrative, while convincing readers it is not important – until it is. It is an entertaining and effective way to retain the element of surprise. I plan to use that in my work.

Sympathy for the Martians? A Writer’s Look at H.G.Wells ’ classic novel, the War of the Worlds

H. G. Wells' novel War of the Worlds is a deceptively simple story of a complacent society facing an invasion for which they were utterly unprepared. Is this a tale akin to the Fall of Rome, the society is blind to its own corruption and ripe for destruction? Is this the story of a society too civilized to recognize approaching danger? Who is meant to have the readers' sympathy?
One way to try and figure that out is to look at the narrator and the characters he meets. They are nameless through most if not all of the novel. Any character named is only named once. Most writers are careful to refer to characters by name so as not to confuse the readers. What is repeated is not the name, but the occupation. The narrator refers to the artilleryman, the cleric, the Martians, and even his brother is the doctor. Only Ogilvy, the astronomer, retains his name and identity. Perhaps Wells was saying they could have been anyone, even the reader or someone the reader knows. So, is Wells setting an "us against them" scenario? Are the readers supposed to 'root for the home team' as it were?
If so, then why start the novel with the Martian plight? Wells explains that the Martians need to find a new place to live before their planet can no longer sustain life. He even restates the issue several times, making it clear to the reader that the Martians must invade if they want to survive. If that wasn't enough to sway the reader, the narrator notes the invasion of Tasmania happened for similar reasons. How can one blame a race that is only doing what we have done? Aren't the Martians a more sophisticated evolved version of us?
If so, then why are they bug-eyed monsters? How many readers are willing or able to identify with a grotesque monster? Why do the Martians shoot first? Why do they kill women, children, or animals (all signs of villainy)? Why have they left the green fields of England red with blood and alien grass? Wells does not shy away from depicting the casual violence of the alien conquerors. Does he want us to sympathize with them, or hate them? Shouldn't the reader support anyone who wants to take up arms against an unfeeling enemy?
How can we support characters whose best acts are passive? This is part of the dilemma Wells sets in this novel. The narrator spends most of the novel running or hiding; none of his actions make a difference in regards to the invasion. When the narrator does act, it is to borrow and return an escape cart, beat a curate senseless because he is risking exposure, and start to dig a tunnel. The cart is essentially a plot device and is overlooked. By the time the narrator begins the beating, the reader does not blame him for what he does; the curate is clearly insane and his religious mania only leads to him becoming a Martian entrée. Digging the tunnel seems proactive only until the narrator and reader understand it is a half-baked fantasy the artilleryman thought of when he was bored.
Who saves humanity? Is it the narrator's physician brother? No, he is saving individuals. Has Ogilvy found a solution? No, Ogilvy has found more Martians waiting to invade. The Martians are not killed by a weapon, but by a cold germ. Wells shows the story through the eyes of a man who is rational but passive, which sees both sides of the issue, and has sympathy for all involved. As a writer, I note the way Wells slants the story by creating distance through the narrator. His narrator misses most of the immediate action, avoiding the emotional impact. If I want my reader to have divided loyalties, I need to insert distance or time between the event and the reader. As Wells did, I need to show more aftermath then battle.
To answer the main question, I have been fighting three separate viruses for more than two weeks, so at the moment my sympathy is for the Martians.