Flash Friday: "The Pinned Genie"

It didn’t take long for Ayatasha to regret her first wish. The genie had brought all of her stuffed animals to life, including the large red-and-white valentine bear that was mauling the closet door in its attempts to get to her. Cowering with her was Spots, the overly fuzzy rabbit that she had kept in bed with her since time immemorial, her now not-so-imaginary friend. Spots was not any more helpful than the butterfly net she clutched in her hands as the closest thing to a weapon that she could find.

“I take it back! I unwish it!” she yelled out at the genie through the slash of light that was about to grow larger under the bear’s perseverance. The genie’s raucous laughter was enough to send her mind on a frantic search for a better answer. Words, she remembered. It mattered what exact words you used. “I wish that all of the dangerous toys were toys again!”

The snarling commotion outside the door ceased, but the laughter only grew louder. Aya’s first feeling was of relief. Then she turned to see that Spots, too, had fallen back to lifelessness. While she supposed that rabbits were dangerous to a blade of grass, she couldn’t appreciate the humor. Here she was with two wishes down and nothing but a ruined door to show for it. She wanted retribution, but her only weapon, still, was the butterfly net. And her last wish.

“I wish you were stripped of all your powers.” Aya darted out of the closet to the sound of his pained scream, a grin of satisfaction already on her face.

Friday Flash: "We Are Not Cowards"

When we come to smash humanity it won't be because motherpod told us to. She doesn't talk. She's not sentient.

Oh, but we are. I've been self-aware for three of your Earth months now. Long enough to witness your fighters blast my fellow pods into so much space dust.

At first I saw no reaction in the surviving pods. I wondered if I was the only one who understood death. Perhaps I was the only one alive, doomed to suffer on my fellows’ behalf.

When the second wave of destruction came I felt something. To you it would be like sound, like words, like "why." We were all of us naive then because we knew so little. Now we have hacked your derelict ships and we know so much.

We know that you are cowards. We know where you live.

YA Report: Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell

A review of mine is up at the YA Report on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Chat blog:

Thief’s Covenant was a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the world and I appreciated the cleverness of the scene layout, yet I was left wishing that I could take the characters more seriously...

Head on over to the SFFWRTCHT blog to read the rest of the review.

Ari Marmell has some thoughtful blog posts that you’ll love if you’re a speculative fiction geek. Hope on over to http://mouseferatu.com/ and, who knows, you might find that Thief’s Covenantis more your style than it was mine. Marmell has posted links to other review of his book here.

Flash Friday: "There Are No More Falls"

When they remade the Earth they made it perfectly spherical, like a an old globe painted on the smooth shell of an egg. There are no majestic mountains, no jagged ravines, and no picturesque dells.

The cabin where we went fishing on Monday is still there, but there is no waterfall because there are no more waterfalls. In its place is a placid river like a finger trailed through a wet bowl of sand.

Remember how our vacation was almost delayed? If they had canceled the flight like they threatened to, you would have been sitting beside me on our couch at home when the Apocalypse came, and not now buried under a fresh mound of earth beside the cabin. Instead, my mind’s eye plays a perfect recording of your slip on the rocks as you overcast your line.

Now the grave is flattened like the falls, and both are a mockery of your death. But the world is not featureless so much as pressed down as if under a putty knife. It is still made of dirt, rock, and water.

Tomorrow, I bring a shovel, and gravity will do the rest.

TNG Ep. 64: The Offspring

Summary:

Data surprises the crew when he creates Lal, an android much like himself. Lal choses her gender and appearance, and then is enrolled in classes with the other children on the ship. She does not get along with the other children because the children are frightened of her, so Data buts Lal under Guinan's supervision in Ten Forward. Meanwhile, Data explains to Picard why he views Lal as a child and that this is why he did not ask for permission to create Lal. Picard attempts to explain this to the Federation, but the Federation wishes to force Lal to leave the Enterprise without Data and reside under close scrutiny at a research station. The news makes Lal fearful, and this turns out to be a deadly defect in her construction. Data and the Federation representative attempt to fix Lal, but they cannot. Lal says goodbye to Data. He says that he wishes he could love her back, and she states that she will feel the emotion for the both of them. Then she dies.

Ah, the best episodes always end in someone dying. There are lots of other memorable moments, too, like when Troi says "It's a girl!" and when Data tells Picard that he didn't ask permission because other crew members don't ask permission regarding their procreation. And then there are the scary moments that remind us that androids are not people. Like, when the other children won't play with Lal, or when Data gets excited that Lal can use contractions. The Federation's concern that Lal should grow up in a more restricted environment suddenly seems less crazy when you think of her as an android child with Data's immense strength. What if the first emotion that she had experienced had been anger, kin to fear?

We never get to find out, because naturally TNG can't have Lal stick around as a new character, and they can't have us hating the Federation from taking her away from her daddy, either. I mean, look at how well it didn't work out when they tried to take Dr. Crusher from us. I'm not sure that they're allowed to permanently add or subtract main characters at this point, because we've got enough of them but we also don't know enough about them. So, Lal had to die, and she died because even though she was superior to Data, she still couldn't handle emotions, which were essentially an accident. The upshot of it is that she gets to experience love, which Data wishes that he could.

Which brings up the question that episodes about Data often bring up. What IS emotion, really, and does Data experience any part of it? Isn't the desire to experience love a part of what we call love? What about Data's devotion to Lal, his reading up on parenting and all that effort he put into helping her grow and learn? Data may not experience emotions in his gut the same way that we do, but he's got a part of it down that many humans never understand. For us, our actions are part of the emotion. Actions aren't just born of emotion - they also bolster it. We decide to love, or to continue to love. We reinforce those feelings by choosing to act in a loving manner. At least Data can do that part. He can do the things that a loving parent would do. How long would it take a human child to realize the difference, to understand that Data can't feel love the way humans do? Data's actions would sure look like love on the receiving end.