A publishing house is a fragile organism

In his arms he has a pile of galleys; he sets them down gently, as if the slightest jolt could upset the order of the printed letters. “A publishing house is a fragile organism, dear sir,” he says, “If at any point something goes askew, then the disorder spread, chaos opens beneath our feet. Forgive me, won’t you? When I think about it I have an attack of vertigo.” And he covers his eyes, as if pursued by the sight of billions of pages, lines, words, whirling in a dust storm.’

- Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler, 1981 [1979], pp. 97-98

photo credit: anyjazz65

In the context of the dissertation, I’ve been thinking a fair bit about textual cyborgs, the speculative field of reader-book interaction, and how this could relate to Tim’s excellent post on cyborg infrastructure. Here, the above quote from Calvino definitely resonates, but I’m still not sure what it all means …

Angels dancing in the static

“Listening to deathly voices in the dark, from Quixote’s moment on the hillside onwards, technologics has suggested, to those who want to listen to its broadcasts, a new, dynamic way of understanding literature – that is, of understanding what it is to write, who (or what) writes, and how to read it. Where the liberal-humanist sensibility has always held the literary work to be a form of self-expression, a meticulous sculpting of the thoughts and feelings of an isolated individual who has mastered his or her poetic craft, a technologically savvy sensibility might see it completely differently: as a set of transmissions, filtered through subjects whom technology and the live word have ruptured, broken open, made receptive. I know which side I’m on: the more books I write, the more convinced I become that what we encounter in a novel is not selves, but networks; that what we hear in poems is (to use the language of communications technology) not signal but noise. The German poet Rilke had a word for it: Geräusch, the crackle of the universe, angels dancing in the static.”

- Tom McCarthy, ‘Technology and the Novel, From Blake to Ballard’, The Guardian

34 nested browser tabs open on their frontal lobes

“What new species of books, then, have proved themselves fit to survive in the attentional ecosystem of the aughts? What kind of novel, if any, can appeal to readers who read with 34 nested browser tabs open simultaneously on their frontal lobes? And, for that matter, what kind of novel gets written by novelists who spend increasing chunks of their own time reading words off screens?”

- Sam Anderson, ‘When Lit Blew into Bits’, New York Magazine

Writing and F3, 1 Year On

It’s been just over a year since the meme finally filtered down to my neck of the tubes with Patterns in Traffic, my first piece of flash fiction. Donning my hypothetical writerly hat in recognition of this milestone, I’ve been trying to root the memetic microfiction in something of a broader context, both in terms of my personal writing experiences and the insights I’ve taken from participating in Friday Flash Fiction.

I can’t really remember my motivation, but I gave NaNoWriMo a shot back in November 2004, producing something I can now recognise as an overwritten dérive of a pseudo-fantastical Venice. The Doge’s Gate – endearingly awkward, with infodumping a’plenty, terrible dialogue, a foul-mouthed Italian waitress, and an ill-judged authorial cameo (37k).

The following spring (April 2005) – despite not studying English or, indeed, anything remotely Englishesque – I managed to blag a place on an undersubscribed 6th form writing course, run by the Arvon Foundation at Totleigh Barton, in the depths of Devon. Viewed through the rose-tinted goggles of nostalgia, this was one of the best weeks of my life. With spring sunshine, good food, and a surfeit of cows, I managed to produce a couple of pretty good poems, a staggeringly vast quantity of really bad poetry, and the first part of a nifty short story in which the MC escaped an abusive mother-daughter relationship … in favour of adventure-with-a-capital-A.

Moving the clock forward to the start of my second year of university (November 2006), I tentatively dipped my toe back into the literary lake of NaNoWriMo. With the additional support of a diverse, vigorous, and broadly likeable bunch of Brightonians (including Kay, Shebit, Alabaster, and Shaun), I made it to the 50k milestone with Illyria - the fantastical offspring of Shakespeare and a thinly-veiled critique of American imperialism. This tale covered theatrical insurrectionism, messenger pigeons, cultural relativism, covertly trebuchet assembly, sheep, swamps, and yet more awkward dialogue.

more »

F3: ‘There Is No Lion’

Another short drip-drip-drip of story, following on from The Landsberger Vats.  And, yes, there’s still a fair bit more to come.

THERE IS NO LION

In the depths of the structure, darkness reigns. The air hangs heavy with perfumed solvents and anti-bacterial agents; a wall against the tide of microbial invaders. Stumbling through the door, I drop to my knees, gulping down a lungful of fumes. Extending a hand for support, my palm clings to a floor of moist linoleum. A corridor of halogen pulls my gaze right, towards the lobby proper; the harsh orange standing stark against the gloom. To the left, a bank of terminals and, yes, more biometrics.

Struggling against the polished plastic to stand, I carefully jog over to the terminals. Running an index finger down the main panel, the screens flicker into life – projecting an arc of colourful graphs and schematics onto the dull black wall. Struggling to push aside the noisy and useless with my outstretched hand, I search for the suite. But I’m sweaty and trembling, and the terminal ignores my gestures as sign language through a fish tank.

Realising the futility of my flailing, I give up. My irises are on the system, and – shit – my alibi is watertight, but my body is in revolt. My mouth is a featureless desert, and I’m swallowing dust. Then, echoing down the corridor’s plastic veneers, the thud of approaching footsteps. I’m not getting any feedback from my lower extremities; casualties of hypertension. Now is hardly the time for pre-fight nerves, but something in the mammalian recesses of my consciousness remains convinced that – providing I avoid any sudden movement – the lion won’t see me.

There is no lion. The footsteps are those of a broad-shouldered man in epaulettes and doc martens; a man whose eyes harden as they alight on my frozen form. Now he’s yelling; his red face the conduit for a torrent of angry German. I don’t have time for this. Searching for a solution, my mind flits back to the broken heart of a thwarted victory; back to the ugly plastic mats and vapid smiles of London. Uncorked, a flood of years-old anger pulses through my muscles, springing me from my paralysis. Through a dark fog, I watch distantly, as my right leg traces a gentle arc through the air. Meeting upper chest, my toes buckle within a battered converse sneaker. As the warm sting of pain spreads up through my foot, I wince, tumbling past the guard and down the corridor.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Superstructing

Last month, the California-based Institute for the Future annouced Superstruct, the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. Here’s the (in game) press release;

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEPTEMBER 22, 2019

Humans have 23 years to go

Global Extinction Awareness System starts the countdown for Homo sapiens.

PALO ALTO, CA — Based on the results of a year-long supercomputer simulation, the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has reset the “survival horizon” for Homo sapiens – the human race – from “indefinite” to 23 years.

“The survival horizon identifies the point in time after which a threatened population is expected to experience a catastrophic collapse,” GEAS president Audrey Chen said. “It is the point from which a species is unlikely to recover. By identifying a survival horizon of 2042, GEAS has given human civilization a definite deadline for making substantive changes to planet and practices.”

According to Chen, the latest GEAS simulation harnessed over 70 petabytes of environmental, economic, and demographic data, and was cross-validated by ten different probabilistic models. The GEAS models revealed a potentially terminal combination of five so-called “super-threats”, which represent a collision of environmental, economic, and social risks. “Each super-threat on its own poses a serious challenge to the world’s adaptive capacity,” said GEAS research director Hernandez Garcia. “Acting together, the five super-threats may irreversibly overwhelm our species’ ability to survive.”Garcia said, “Previous GEAS simulations with significantly less data and cross-validation correctly forecasted the most surprising species collapses of the past decade: Sciurus carolinenis and Sciurus vulgaris, for example, and Anatidae chen. So we have very good reason to believe that these simulation results, while shocking, do accurately represent the rapidly growing threats to the viability of the human species.”

GEAS notified the United Nations prior to making a public announcement. The spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General Vaira Vike-Freiberga released the following statement: “We are grateful for GEAS’ work, and we treat their latest forecast with seriousness and profound gravity.”

GEAS urges concerned citizens, families, corporations, institutions, and governments to talk to each other and begin making plans to deal with the super-threats.

###

Superstruct! Play the game, invent the future.

more »

F3: ‘The Landsberger Vats’

More from Stockholm Syndrome, following immediately from Welcome to the Umweltzone.  There’s one more chunk from Red’s perspective to come, one from Simon’s, and then a couple of sections from the perspective of their “quarry”.  Unless I get distracted.  Either way, I’m really getting into the characters here, despite the fact that my writing pace has been glacial.  There’s probably too much swearing, and the cuts between stories are less intentional than a matter of me running out of time.  And because it’s supposed to be quite tightly structured, I’ve had to go back and edit some of the previous segments.  Still, at least it’s here … and, as ever, crit and comments encouraged;

THE LANDSBERGER VATS

Muttering into my collar, I urge Simon to keep the mark distracted.

In the wake of relay delay, my eyes are slowly pulled skyward. The vats stand in defiance; attempting to dwarf me beneath its towers and buttresses. I’m having none of it.

“I’m trying to kick out the cameras.” I add, turning my attentions to the building.

Cloaked in an ugly green-grey moss and sodden with rainwater, the sodden ziggurat teeters in the wind and rain. A crumbling heap of shipping crate, canvas, and reclaimed aluminium. The original structure is long dead – its skeletal frame buried beneath the tide of impromptu additions.

“It shouldn’t take long.”

Someone saw the need for surveillance: a hundred orange dots in the rapidly fading twilight. My left hand is closed tight on the custom incendiary. Swallowing a shudder, I second guess myself – thieving a glance at the bitch’s simple grey plastic; tasting the latent saline of her binary incantations.

I pull the pin.

A moment of majesty and unfolding exuberance, then I’m struggling for light and oxygen in a torrent of data. For the first time, I panic; swiping desperately at the flickering images that pass before me.

One hundred and five cameras, seventy-two of which are dummies. “Now, that’s interesting,” I think, stumbling backwards. Even so, she could have … scratch that, she should have warned me. But there’d been no hints, just bitter lemon and inexpertly applied mascara. Three hours of stilted conversation beneath a charcoal sky, and this was her repayment.

Synapses firing, my stomach abandons me to the imagined gravity of a chasm of burnt copper. My ears decompress.

“Remind me why we’re doing this, Red.”

The lunchbox bounces Simon’s disembodied words into the depths of my skull.

“A pile of cash?” I ask, managing a grimace as I sweep the overclocked image of a well-dressed woman leftward, out of my line of sight. Then my mind turns to our client; the quarry’s sister. Rising nausea meets the pink blush of guilt in an awkward melange.

“A way of ensuring the long-term mental health of a deeply unstable woman?”

My words sound hollow. Simon gets the text, but the guilt will linger. As the bitch’s trojan overwhelms the ziggurat’s compound eye, I’m distracting myself with the light show; watching the algorithms relinquishing our quarry’s data as they commit my irises to memory.

Grace Diaz. Spanish software developer. Suite 121-B.

For a second time, I swallow.

“You tell me?” Somewhere in the translation from brain to voice, cutting comment becomes half-hearted question. The choices are Simon’s, and his alone. My role in this situation is strictly professional.

Right?

Its task complete, the incendiary is burning itself out – a vortex of flame dissolving back into the velvet cover of dusk. The remaining orange lights flicker and die. Pulling myself up from the damp concrete, I shake the raindrops from my jacket. Composure regained, I begin to trace the boundary of the premises, searching for an entrance.

“Deeply unstable.”

Initially, I take the words for an echo.

“She doesn’t seem unstable.”

Well, shit.

- – - – -

I’m running. In recent years, and in my line of work, this has been something of a recurring motif.

In the background, seeping into my awareness from the edges inward, I’m eavesdropping on the continuing stand-off.

“Unstable? Who’s unstable?”  There’s something in Grace’s line of questioning … something in her tone of voice.  Something familiar, with a shape I can feel forming in the back of my throat. Something that I realise just before Simon.

“Damn it!”

My yell echoes off the concrete. Pigeons scatter, soaring sideways into the darkness.

I glance behind, but the plaza – if that’s what it is – is abandoned.

“Simon, can you hold her a little longer?” Sod the whispering; my voice is loud, urgent. But, of course, he knows what he’s doing. It’s his fucking vocation, after all, and God only knows how I’m supposed to spur him to new heights of bullshit by asking nicely.

“It’s okay, Perry, I know why you’re here.” Grace seems calm, measured. These are the words of someone who knows a lot more than they’ve been letting on. Which means I have a lot less time than I’d anticipated. So, while “Perry” is doing a double-take, I’m killing the two-way. He’ll probably do better without me on the other side of a teleprompt, meddling inexpertly.

I all but rub my face against the biometric scanners. A pneumatic hiss signals the opening of doors, and – chest thumping – I fling myself into the lobby.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

F3: ‘Welcome to the Umweltzone’

This is the next layer of The Terminal. Very much unfinished, but – since I need lunch – I’ll post the second half next week. And then there’s at least one more piece to come – I really like the characters, so it could easily end up being more.

WELCOME TO THE UMWELTZONE

Pedal to the floor, I race through the liquid mist of post-industrial Berlin. Even in the twilight, silver and green dominate. A world of infinitely customisable architecture – modular units and wind turbines; turf and steel. This side of the wall, Berlin’s heritage was papered over and trampled underfoot. Preservation and conservation were thrown aside; surplus to the orgy of market-humping and wide-eyed commerce. Thirty years later, and this part of the capital is home to a thousand small business enterprises, buoyed by EU subsidies and staffed with caffeine-fuelled graduates of every stripe. Welcome to the Umweltzone.

The Nissan chatters away, exchanging data with Galileo and the other cars and lorries on the German A-roads. Yesterday, it was a hire vehicle; a bullet point on the expenses of the Brazilian account. Today, it’s utterly convinced of its role as an Interflora delivery van, bearing a cargo of vacuum-packed dwarf orchids.

I call it the lunchbox.

It’s monitoring traffic density, ethanol use, meteorological patterns, and the humidity of the simulated orchids. Apparently, I’m entering a pocket of unusually low pressure, part of a diffuse ribbon of bisecting the continent from Stockholm to Nice.

Luckily, the lunchbox isn’t capable of monitoring the integrity of its own information systems. Thanks to Simon, an adjusted p2p nav system is narrowing in on the physical location of our target. Now, we’re just waiting for her to make an appearance in the terminal.

“Is she there yet?” I ask, flicking my eyes to the dashboard chronometer. “It’s another hundred before the lunchbox is in range. At least.”

Allowing for speech/text conversion and a five second lag, I await his answer. My stomach is a knot of elastic bands.

“Not yet. Wish you could this place, Red; it’s bizarre.” The words belong to Simon, but the voice is provided by the vehicle. Distracted by the peculiarities of my own journey, I marvel at the temple to the railway, a great glass box which passes on my right.

Then, the voice of a woman; “What do you think?” With no obvious point of origin, the question fills me with raw panic.

“Stunning.” It takes a moment for me to realise that this response wasn’t me, but belonged to the diver. Definitely Simon; enthusiastic, with the occasional slip signalling his Mancunian origins. Which means … the woman was Rosanna; our target. Her voice sounds a little older than I’d been expecting, but – hell – at least she’s made an appearance.

Relaxing into the seat, I passively stare as the lunchbox indicates right, turning towards Alexanderplatz.

“And I’m on. You ready?” The artificial voice sounds peculiarly urgent. I have to remind myself that it’s a quirk of programming, nothing more. Outside, the square allows an unhindered glimpse of the city skyline, as punctured by the garish lights of a brutal spire; a lingering monster, born of the twentieth century. But the nav says we’re still out of range. Where is she?

“Think I can see the television tower. Give me a little longer?” I hazard, listening to the fawning and simpering of Simon and our target. She sounds younger than I’d been imagining.

Then the lunchbox is turning. A sharp lurch to the right, and the tower recedes into the ashen haze. Looking at the chronometer, I bite my lip. The elastic bands are back, and they brought friends. I can feel the droplets of sweat glistening on my forehead; should have packed the sweatband.

In the background, I’m forced to listen to Simon’s attempts at flirting. It’s excruciating. Frankly, if it wasn’t what I was paying him for, I’d probably have vomited by now.

But when the p2p nav starts blinking, my misgivings evaporate. A reverse-engineering of the girl’s connection protocol finally yields a physical location – Landsberger Allee; a converted hostel, right on top of the railway station.

“Think I’ve found the vats.”

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

F3: ‘The Terminal’

Now, I’m not quite sure if this is flash (it’s just over 1000 words), or the opening chapter of something a bit longer. I’ve got some vague ideas of what might happen next.

As ever, crit and comments more than welcome.

THE TERMINAL

Open to the void, the terminal’s absent ceiling is unnerves and unsettles. I’m sitting on the main steps, running my hands over the simulated marble – the texture is right, but the lack of heat data compounds my discomfort.

(20:25:05) RED: Is she there yet? I need another 100 to get the lunchbox into range. At least.

Yanking my attention back from the void, my pupils dart from left to right, picking letters on an invisible keyboard. With a blink, the message is sent.

(20:25:43) Diver: Not yet. Wish you could see this place, Red; it’s bizarre.

In the silence, the clattering of a mechanical departures sign. I turn my head, expecting movement, but there’s nothing. A foolish expectation, particularly taken in the light of the environment’s lack of roof.

“So, what do you think?”

Grace wears a charcoal skirt and matching jacket. Her hair is a mass of tightly wound fronds, the colour of burnt cherry. The only colour in this place, in fact. Grayscale elegance in a haptic mausoleum.

But everyone has their quirks, and my paycheck relies on my willingness to accommodate hers.

(20:27:21) Diver: And I’m on. You ready?

“Stunning.” I say, tipping my trilby. Nice touch; another of Red’s recommendations.

(20:27:40) RED: Think I can see the TV tower. Give me a little longer?

Returning the smile, Grace looks down. “Not me, Perry; the terminal.”

“I know.”

Silence; a window long enough to let my words sink in, but not enough to pass the baton of conversation.

“I was particularly impressed by the-”

(20:29:01) RED: Ha! Think I’ve found the vats.

Red’s comment is the push which topples the tower. Distracted by the floating text, my thoughts dissolve to dust. Grace leans in, touching me gently. The skin texture is real enough, but – as with the marble – the absence of body heat highlights the illusion.

“You okay, Perry?”

I shudder, hoping to dislodge the spectral presence. Or, at the very least, willing Red to stay silent.

“I’m fine.” Standing, I turn to gesture at the monochrome cavern. “Tell me more about this place.”

“Well,” Grace begins, pursing her lips, “Most of the mesh was a favour from this Swedish guy from college. In the year before the crash, he was part of some open source survey of famous sites and spaces. One of those geospatial things.”

I tilt my head sceptically.

“And what about the textures? The sounds? The lighting?”

“Added afterwards. I’ve got a good team working on this. We’re dragging it through beta at the moment – polishing, and plugging the gaps with archive photos and video footage. Right now, there’s a Canadian artist rendering the last of the roof.” Glancing over at the terminal clock, she allows a moment of silence. “Well, perhaps not right now.”

She smiles. Suddenly, I’m extremely aware of the ungrounded artifice of the pinstripe and trilby. I’m not supposed to be here. She’s going to find out, kick me back to the surface, and I’ll watch as the sister’s promises of cash evaporate.

(20:32:15) RED: Keep her talking. I’m trying to kick out the cameras; it shouldn’t take long.

“And what then?” I ask, frowning slightly.

“Well, once testing finishes, we’re hoping to turn it loose on the vintage crowd.”

Her face softens into another smile, triggering a faint pang of guilt. I stand, and walk over to her. Suppressing the niggles of uncertainty, I attempt to inject some amusement into my voice.

“Which explains the clothing.” I say, raising an eyebrow.

“Exactly.” She clasps my hand in hers. “Thanks for coming, Perry. It really means a lot to me.”

(20:34:58) Diver: Shit. Remind me why we’re doing this, Red.

“But you barely know me.” I say, dismissively.

We both listen to the mechanical clattering of the non-existent departures board, giving a dimension to the silence between thoughts.

(20:35:21) RED: A pile of cash? A way of ensuring the long-term mental health of a deeply unstable woman? You tell me.

Rhetorical questions aren’t supposed to have answers, and this revelation is a fist in the stomach.

“A deeply unstable woman?” Red’s words escape my clenched molars. “You didn’t think to tell me that much, did you?”

And then, quiet as a whisper; “She doesn’t seem particularly unstable.”

It takes a couple of moments for my actions to percolate the surface of my monochrome, simulated skull, birthing a moment of pure terror. Her smile hardening, Grace asks who I was talking to. I try to remain nonchalant.

“I didn’t … I mean, I wasn’t-”

She sighs.

“It’s okay, Perry, I think know why you’re here.”

“You do?”

Grace folds her arms.

“And here’s what’s going to happen next; I’m going to ask you to leave.”

“What? Why?”

Back in the vat, my heart and stomach strain against my chest.

(20:37:32) RED: Damnit, Simon, can you hold her a bit longer? I’m almost there.

“You’re going to walk out of that big door over there” – she gestures at the terminal’s main entrance, also opening onto the void, “And, you know what?”

“What?”

(20:37:49) Diver: How? Suggestions would be useful!

“I’ve had enough of your type, Perry – assuming that’s even your real name. You’re going to stay out of my life.”

Anticipating a response from Red, I stay silent. Grace looks at me with determined eyes. Gradually, the initial punch of ventricle-blowing panic dissipates. Screw Red; it’s time for the truth.

“Did you hear-?”

I raise an index finger to my lips, and the question dies in her throat.

“Well, you’re right on one thing, girl; Perry is no more my name than Grace is yours.”

She does a good impression of confusion.

“What the hell do you think you’re talking about?”

“Grace is a pseudonym. What happened to Rosanna Garcia, second in line to the Garcia ethanol fortune? Do me a favour, Rosanna, and look around you-”

I gesture at the gaping darkness.

“How can this be escapism? Without colour, without warmth, this can only be a pale emulation of the real. And the real wants you back, Rosanna. Your sister’s in the real, in Manaus, and she wants you back.”

“Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

On my part, a split-second of doubt.

“… my name is Grace, and-”

(20:39:07) RED: And we’re done. Now, let’s get the hell out of here.

And with Red’s final comments, Grace is expelled from the terminal.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

F3: ‘Sublime’

They said it couldn’t be done.

Well, I sure showed them … Fools!

*cackles menacingly*

SUBLIME

Finishing the last of her soup, Theresa turns to me and smiles. Her eyes are unnervingly reptilian. I don’t know, perhaps her great-grandfather was a monitor lizard or something. My boyfriend, my former boyfriend, kept a monitor lizard. He was called Coleridge, after the poet. The lizard, that is. Not my boyf-

Not my ex-boyfriend.

Anyway, she’s sitting there; cold eyes, fixed smile.

“Becky” she says, hints of a smirk playing on her lips, “Really dear, that soup was sublime.”

Her voice goes up on the last word. I clench, well, pretty much everything. This is it – showtime.

“Sublime?” I ask, raising both voice and eyebrows; “Really?”

As I continue, her smirk hardens.

“So,” – (I lean in, eyes pitched skyward) – “Would that be the Burkean or Kantian conception of the sublime?”

She turns to Ivan; her man from Minsk. He shrugs, inadvertently concealing what little there is of his neck.

I wait. I’m good at waiting.

“Kantian?” she hazards eventually, staring intently at the table.

“Ah!” I say, getting to my feet, “So the soup shattered your ‘misplaced belief in authentic representation [1]?” I advance on her, menacingly. She shrinks back into her seat.

“Was it” – (anticipating victory, I pause to wet my lips) – “a phenomenon so fundamentally overpowering that it was, to quote Bleiker and Leet, ‘not just awe-invoking, but simply too vast to be comprehended in [its] totality [2]?”

“Did you just manage to incorporate footnotes into your … uh …?”

Ivan trails off as I fix him with one of my stares. Snatching the empty soup bowl from under Theresa’s chin, I’m pretty sure I see her wince. For the rest of the evening, she says nothing, and I later return from a toilet break to find both her and Ivan gone – having slipped, unnoticed, into the neon gloom of the concrete jungle.

- – - – -

[1] Bleiker, R. and M. Leet. 2006. ‘From the Sublime to the Subliminal’, in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 34 (3), p. 723.

[2] Ibid. p. 717.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.