Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Im Pregnant What Does The Mucus Look Like

Contemporaries - One Zero (0 One 2003), Chris Roberson (n.1970)


I racconti di storia alternativa hanno un fascino tanto sottile quanto intenso. Forse è dovuto alla loro natura intermedia, spuria. Fiabe, in certo qual modo: su mondi che non sono, ma potrebbero essere. Che il caso avrebbe potuto rendere concreti e invece sono (rimasti) pura creazione della fantasia. Ma anche, nelle mani dello scrittore abile, fiabe che innescano la riflessione sulla nostra storia e il nostro presente. Sui meccanismi sociali, psicologici e intellettuali lungo i binari dei quali la nostra storia si sviluppa, o non si sviluppa. O si sarebbe sviluppata se fosse accaduto something. Sometimes those worlds take on the contours of the nightmare, and particularly fertile in this regard is the genre of stories that the assumption of the victory of the Axis in World War II, or otherwise manipulate the fate of the protagonists of that period. Rare other times, the alternate path of history seems a utopia created - provided that the catch does not wait in ambush around the corner. But more often the other reality is no better nor worse, just different - and as such bizarre. An ulterior motive of the charm of these stories must reside in the exotic locations of them - the more exotic in some ways the more we feel that they are very close to our reality and other hopelessly. Finally, there is no doubt that such stories are linked more closely to the true nature of science fiction, that nucleus is speculative what if , a structure so simple and so are able to branch out. What if : it is the pivotal question of science fiction (science fiction is actually the same), which is an attempt to respond to human need, double it and to know and to build their own knowledge. They are short, seductive and complex intellectual games and sometimes irresistible.

The story Roberson is not a member of the nightmares, and actually has a hint of fairy tale. It 's a story quiet, reflective, even seemingly idyllic. The gestures and timing of the Forbidden City and the Chinese imperial court, where he set the story they can imagine only slow, ritualized. The scene that opens the story conveys perfectly the feeling of calm and peace. A man is immersed in a quiet garden, in contemplation of the swimming pool where fish: is the Head of Computer Tsui Court, under his command there is an army of men leaning on their busy schedules, and calculations on a calculation for the greater glory Empire. Tsui is not merely a chief accountant, to him and his office are to be entrusted even the mathematical calculations that will realize the dream of conquering imperial space. A dream is commensurate with those seated on the Throne of the Dragon intuitively around the first quarter than in our timeline would be the twentieth century and dominates the entire planet, the legacy of the wars of his ancestors victorious from one end of the Earth. It is not said where the timeline has started to diverge from ours: the story is discharged to the network is part of a series of stories, the cycle of Celestial Empire, but I do not know if Roberson elsewhere to address the topic. Based on the unique Zero One could hypothesize that the mid-thirteenth century, the Great Khan of the Mongols is Ögedei survived a few more years thus enabling the army led by General Subotai and Mongolian Batu Khan completed the conquest of Europe, or more likely that the first third of the fifteenth century, the Early Ming emperors did not suddenly put an end to commercial activities, exploration, diplomatic and military of the great fleet of Admiral Zheng He, quickly squandering the considerable geopolitical strategic results and benefits achieved by the brilliant eunuch China that if it had focused on expanding commercial and military, would probably have been right that the European powers began shortly thereafter to create their commercial and colonial empires. Whatever the point of departure with our timeline, Tsui lives in the heart of the planetary power.
Admiral Zheng He: I've had a free hand?

Chief Calculator is immersed in his dreamy reflections (you could also define mathematical delirium: an infinite number of operators at a time instant that the abacus should carry out simple operations needed to calculate everything) when it reached the edge of the fish pond, the Royal Inspector Bai. The dialogue of two courtiers has navigated some of the minuet, dance ritual. But beneath the calm of men and placidity of nature there is the danger. Thus, the Royal Inspector nibbling a sandwich stuffed with pork - a habit imported from one of the more remote provinces of the Empire, England - dividing it evenly: the bread to the fish-lens abacus, the result of a bizarre experiment to select a species of fish that swim in assuming certain configurations would help in the calculations (we are in China, after all), the meat of the fish unnamed, but which are evidently of the piranha.

Scene Roberson's insistence they are not free: they create a strong image of the psychologies involved and the dynamics they trigger, as well as a clear understanding of the tensions that arise in such an environment. Other details similar innervate the entire plot of the story. So Tsui call is made by Chamberlain to the Emperor's presence so that he arrives late and, predictably, what irritates him and put under great pressure the Chief Calculator. It may seem a redundant underscore that the Emperor expressed his irritation, but again it is not (or it is not decisively) the details of the verbal skirmishes Roberson develop the plot also showed that the implied for use by the casual reader: the personalities, the psychology of the characters to emerge from the words spoken. And those not called, paradoxically, they weigh less, why are obvious. And the characters emerge fears and weaknesses that remain in the open just as they would like to hide them.

In the presence of the monarch will take place on a human and cultural psychodrama. From that same distance of the Inspector Bai province British sandwich has come a inventor, Napier, seeking funding from the throne of the world for his research. Napier invented a prototype of a computer (the title of the story is based on the binary number system) and came to bring his car, obviously to develop and improve as a decisive element for the space ambitions of the planetary lord. The naive and innocent Napier is carrying a deadly attack at the heart of power and position (inherited) by Tsui, and all the bureaucratic structure of the court.
The cover of Live Without a Net, the anthology where the story of Roberson appeared originally in 2003

Roberson resolve the confrontation between Napier and preparing Tsui an ironic "chinoiserie", showing off the protagonist of the scene, the Lord Chamberlain, the malice and subtlety you would expect from the power and intelligence behind a global throne. Beyond the enjoyment of the game and manipulative high dignitary of the measured and insinuating dialogue, the very heart of the matter is in the show 's cultural impasse that the author shows the reader. In itself, the fact is banal, as you can see by reading the story: the inability (or the extreme difficulty) to develop a mentality and a culture open to innovation from a totalitarian society, or at least top- and heavy-handed, based on the dominance of a centralized bureaucratic organization with all its intrigue, the vetoes, the revenue. The all-powerful world empire seems to have come on the threshold of replication of the closure to the world that the smallest of the Ming empire undertaken between the fifteenth and sixteenth century and led to the marginalization of China for the next four centuries and passes. Of course, a fact that he is the only one to have the skills to build the infernal machine calculator, Napier will end, and very elegantly hidden within the piranha, is not difficult to imagine that in the distant province British or somewhere like that, sooner or Then, someone else discovers the computer, and, again, sooner or later, someone will send the all-powerful emperor upside down.

American of Texas, Chris Roberson has his professional debut with this tale (available online at its website at: http://www . chrisroberson.net / O_One.html ), winning in 2004 Sidewise Award, dedicated to novels and short stories ucronici and alternative history, which he then repeated his length on the novel with another story of the cycle. For years, however, was published short stories and novels, among other things con la formula del print on demand . Di suo in Italia si è visto un solo altro racconto oltre a Uno Zero che è stato pubblicato nel fascicolo n.47 della rivista Robot.

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