"When I Saw the ET...."

This is SO mind-blowing! Everybody go over to Suzette Haden Elgin's blog right away and read this post entitled "Writing Science Fiction" and its responses:

http://ozarque.livejournal.com/525475.html

It's a series of one-liner "storylets" each completing a sentence that begins with the clause, "When I saw the ET trapped in the storm drain...."

There's nothing I can say to elaborate on it, except that I wish I could do that with such apparent ease and grace.

Hmm—now I wonder what might be some other opening clauses that could yield equally enticing and provocative variations. "When the vampire flapped at my window...."?

Margaret L. Carter
http://www.margaretlcarter.com

The Art of Fantasy Worldbuilding In SF

Google Alerts sent me the following alert on "Jacqueline Lichtenberg"

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2008/05/09/building-your-own-world/

This link is to a blog posted May 9,2008, by Angela Benedetti, which discusses the reasons why a writer should make the effort to construct a fictional world solidly. It's a very well written post (read it, please!) and speaks right to many of the points that I've made recently on this blog. About me, she says:

And if the vampire turns someone, even if it’s only once per book, extrapolate that back for however many centuries or millenia vampires have existed, figure out about how many vampires there probably are in the world, and escalate the problem accordingly. Even the occasional Van Helsing with a satchel full of stakes isn’t going to be able to hold back that particular tide — how long before the human population dwindles to the point where the vampires are all going to starve to death?

This sort of economy of dwindling resources can be done and done well, and turned into an excellent story arc of its own. Jacqueline Lichtenberg wrote a series of SF books where the human race had mutated into two forms, one of which was a vampire-like predator who had to kill one of the other sort each month to survive. The predators started out as a minority population, but about halfway through the series (which covered centuries of future history) she addressed the problem of twelve deaths per year times a lengthening lifespan for the predators multiplied by an expanding predator population, and came up with what she called Zelerod’s Doom, named after the predator mathematician who ran the numbers and gave his people the extremely unwelcome news that Something Had To Be Done by a certain year or they were going to kill all the prey and then starve to death. It was a major plot point of the series and eventually forced a significant shift in the functioning of her society, with all the politics and wars and death and crises this sort of shift usually entails.

This is great worldbuilding, following the implications to their logical conclusion and then using that conclusion to tell an absorbing story. Note also that this sort of conflict would’ve rocked in a romance series — classic Romeo and Juliet stuff.

And of course Angela knows that when the first 8 Sime~Gen novels were published in hardcover and mass market, the SF world would not allow any whiff of Romance in an SF novel, and the Romance world would reject outright any novel that had something vaguely fantasy or Sf about it. Mixing SF and Fantasy was death to sales. I did all of this and more in blatant defiance, but tried not to let them know I was defying them. Really, after all, what they don't know won't hurt them. So here are some clues to what I didn't tell "them."

The Sime~Gen premise is based on the Vampire archetype and welded to an SF framework that has Fantasy "rebar" reinforcing the masonry. It's a complex cross-genre world, so to publish it in the SF genre, most all the fantasy had to be folded inside and underneath so no editor would notice (the fans did, though!)

The following link of my name will take you to the amazon page listing my books where you can find the Sime~Gen titles very easily.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Right after I saw Angela's blog entry, simegen.com acquired a new advertiser who is selling lessons leading to a massage license.

I commented to our sysadmin, Patric Michael, "Well that advertiser certainly belongs on simegen.com because after all it's the root of the Companion's Training." And Patric insisted I write an article about the connection.

In the Sime~Gen premise, the Companion is a kind of voluntary donor to the vampire figure, called a Channel whose major job is Healing and giving Life.

And I started thinking about the Companion's training in terms of this blog.

The Companion and the Channel are the solution to Zelerod's Doom. Working in pairs, they are able to provide all the sustenance the predator Simes require.

Most readers of the Sime~Gen novels assume the Channel has the upper hand, control, power in the ever increasingly intimate relationship between Channel and Companion. They assume it's the Channel's decisions and the Channel's talent that Heals and Sustains, and the Companion just follows along and does as instructed.

NOTHING could be further from the truth.

In any relationship between Sime (predator) and Gen (prey) -- the Gen always has the upper hand, the greatest portion of the "power," and makes the really critical decisions. The Companion uses the Channel to accomplish Healing and other miracles.

It's the Companion's trained and disciplined ability to Heal and use the Channel that allows this whole crazy system of Sime~Gen society to work. A person with Companion's talent who isn't so trained is a monster, a danger, a menace. One fan writer, Andrea Alton, picked up on this and wrote a marvelous story titled ICY NAGER about a Gen turned hunter of the Simes because he had acquired a unique sort of training.

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/icynager.html

How the Companions learn to use Channels to Heal has been covered in some of the published novels, and explored and elaborated on in many fan written stories (posted online for free reading at http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/ )

But not a lot has been written about how exactly Companions do all this and where those skills came from in our "real" world.

The Worldbuilding process takes a bit of our "real" world and extrapolates it or alters it to serve the constructed world.

Sime~Gen is an SF Universe and most all the stories are pure SF. But the science behind what Companions do is from the Occult Sciences, or Magick which normally is the science behind Fantasy worldbuilding.

At the time the Sime~Gen world was built, Chakras, acupressure and acupuncture, Auras and assorted models of the human nervous system were considered rubbish by mainstream science.

Today reputable chiropractors use acupressure and other procedures related to the nervous circuitry of the human body that manifests as acupressure points.

So today, this science is "science" and when you use it to build a world, you end up with a "science fiction world." When the science stood in disrepute and you used it to build a world, you ended up with a "fantasy world."

If you look at a map of the human nervous system such as acupuncturists use,
http://www.stressreliefproducts.com/charts/large-chart.htm

You see one nervous system with nodes strung along the lines.

A similar chart of a Sime's or a Gen's nervous system would look pretty much the same, differing in some details because both Sime and Gen are mutated Ancients (us).

A Channel's nervous system would be very different from ordinary Simes' and Gens'.

A Channel has two separate but conjoined nervous systems with two sets of nodes running all over the body.

Here's an old, traditional poster of Chakras and information about them:
http://www.yogalifestyle.com/images/Chakra2.jpg

And here's a page of colorful Chakra posters and diagrams
http://spiralvisions.com/chakracises/chakraposters.htm

These two sorts of diagrams of connections that hold a spirit into a body, if extrapolated to a science about the Channel's body and its Healing functions become the basis for the Companion's training. The Companion has to learn to sense these nodes and free up the energy flowing among them. That is done by using personal emotions to affect his/her own body, very much as a Yoga Master can control respiration and heartbeat, etc.

For Ancients, physical stimulation of the points on these diagrams affect strength of body, mind, spirit, psychology, mood, emotions, pain, vigor, well-being, and everything we consider important in life.

Today Massage Therapists, soft tissue workers, chiropractors, healers of all sorts use these theories to alleviate all manner of suffering that conventional medicine just doesn't address.

A number of schools have grown up and there are vigorous arguments among them about what's best for whom under which circumstances.

And so it is with Companions and Channels. They have their colorful and informative charts hung on their office walls, and their erudite arguments and a huge variety of ways they are trained, and those trained this way look down on those trained another way while others invent even more new ways to train people.

But it all boils down to massage therapy. The job of the Companion is to know where to touch a Channel, how hard, how often, in what pattern, and most especially how to use concentration and imagination to affect the condition of the channel's nervous system. There's a lot of book learning behind it all, but most of it is talent, skill, practice, and most of all compatibility with the particular Channel.

The Companion must diagnose the Channel's problem and apply the correct remedy - or the Channel won't be able to save the next life put into his/her care.

The Companion's strength, skill and discipline, (and talent) keep the Channel going, and keep the Channel's perceptions honed to a fine edge so the Channel can diagnose and treat the problem presented by ordinary Simes and Gens (or even other Channels and Companions).

Now why isn't all this explained in detail in the novels? Because there's no way to "show" it and it's mostly irrelevant to the plots (so far).

These stories are set so far into the future that the characters don't know anything about the Chakra charts etc. and the actual Ancient science on which their practices are based. They mostly had to reinvent all this for themselves from scratch. Few Ancient texts survived, though some hidden communities preserved a lot of it.

So the writer has a big problem avoiding expository lumps! All that's visible when a Channel and Companion pair work on a patient is a couple of gestures, a careful touch, a precise repositioning holding the distance between them just so.

When writing from the Channel's point of view, all that shows is the Channel's awareness of the Companion's attention focused at a particular point. If that attention wavers or becomes fuzzy, the Channel can't do his/her work.

The best Companions have not only the talent and training of a Companion, but also good, old fashioned Ancient psychic talent.

A good Companion can see auras as psychics can, and can see the hitches and clogs in the flow of energy among the chakras and pressure points.

It takes training to hone those perceptions, and it takes training to know what to do about any given problem -- and even more training to do it reflexively, easily, and in time to help. Elements of the Companion's training resemble training in the martial arts. Do without thinking.

Not everyone can learn it, not everyone can master it.

Personality also figures in. Channels prefer certain Companions over others. A personal, and very intimate, bond is necessary to produce a really great Channel/Companion team. The tensions and conflicts involved in forming such teams make for a good story.

As the centuries pass, Companion training is standardized so that teams can work together without the long years of forming an intimate bond. This, too, is a situation fraught with dramatic possibilities.

When setting out to do some serious worldbuilding, start with something that is well known and accepted -- add something that's just a crazy theory of the day, a fad maybe, shake well and decant into your novel. See what happens. But when marketing your novel, play your cards close to your chest.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Sexism and the English language

I love writing alien romance in part because it allows me to comment on our society and our ingrained beliefs without being offensive... I hope.

This weekend, I've been going over the copy-edits of my most recent romance, Knight's Fork, which is due for release in October 2008.

It's been a delightful and instructive experience. I've inferred that my copy-editor is an erudite, scholarly, English professorial type of the male persuasion.


Possibly, I've enjoyed a similar mixture of glee and embarrassment to that reported by RomVet Cindy Dees.

Cindy Dees recounted that a lieutenant colonel in the lowest regions of The White House had to read her slightly steamy Romance novels to make sure that no Cindy Dees fictional action adventures accidentally betrayed the sitting President's secrets.

Cindy Dees, Lise Fuller, Lynn Hardy, Larissa Ione, and Ashley Ladd were my guests last night on a special radio program in honor of Armed Forces Day and Lynn Hardy's dedicatedtoourdefenders.org organization which sends books to members of the armed forces who are desperately bored during their down-time while deployed overseas.


Back to my copy-editing.

In this scene from KNIGHT'S FORK, the hero, 'Rhett has just shared the contents of a letter from his grandmother. The letter summarizes family history.


One name she had heard recently. “The toddler who was a terror, Djetthro-Jason. Is that my sister’s new Mate? He spoke to me at your fortune-telling.”

’Rhett nodded, unsmiling. “He’s my half brother. His mother, Djavena, was my mother, too. My father married—on Earth, they call Mating “marrying”—three times. My mother, Djavena, also was Mated three times. Three brothers had her, one after the other. She got passed around.”

His mother had three Mates.

Electra noted his casually brutal tone, and also the doing word-choice for his father’s sex life, and the done to wording for his mother, as if Djavena hadn’t had a choice. Possibly ’Rhett’s view of females had been affected…and also his attitude toward sex.



Au: means this is a question for the author. The comments pertain to the last paragraph.

Au: this doesn’t seem to refer to anything above; delete?
Au: ‘the had her wording for his mother’ ? [is ‘done to’ from an early draft?]


Did you notice the difference between the Active and Passive constructions? Did you notice the Subjects and the Objects of the phrases and sentences?

I did it deliberately, of course.
Surely, it doesn't take an alien, or an immigrant, or a feminist to notice the subtle sexism in our language, does it?

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Crossover Promotion

How can a new book be effectively used to promote other books in an author’s backlist? What’s the secret to luring readers who’ve enjoyed one novel into seeking out the rest of the author’s work? It’s been a frequent source of frustration for me that new releases don’t seem to produce the carryover effect I’d hoped for. My Silhouette vampire romance, EMBRACING DARKNESS, was my first full-length fiction opportunity to reach a mass market audience. The bio in the front included my website URL. The book sold fairly well (as far as I could make out) and got a 4-star rating from ROMANTIC TIMES. I hoped for at least a temporary bump in sales of my earlier works to people who liked my vampires in EMBRACING DARKNESS and discovered other books in the same universe on my web page. I saw nary a bump, not even a discernible blip. If I enjoy one book by an author who’s new to me, I usually check out her previous work and sometimes even buy from her backlist. I assumed (well, yeah, we know what that word spells) other readers would react in a similar way. Whenever I’m interviewed, I mention books I’ve had released by several different publishers, and if appropriate I make a point of mentioning that my vampire series is listed chronologically on my website. I send out a monthly newsletter with excerpts and review links, as well as other goodies such as interviews and brief book reviews. I occasionally give away books from my backlist through various venues; if that tactic draws in new readers for the rest of my oeuvre, I haven’t noticed. I haven’t even seen any crossover from my e-book sales with Ellora’s Cave—fairly high-volume for e-books—to sales of my books from other e-publishers (not so high-volume), even though EC’s readers are obviously web-savvy and willing to buy e-books and small press releases.

I’d hate to think the obvious answer is correct—that almost everybody who reads one of my novels reacts so lukewarmly that he or she has no interest in ever reading another. :) Setting aside that possibility, is there a secret to stimulating crossover readership? I’ve often encountered the advice that an author should promote herself more than promoting any particular book. What are the most effective ways of doing that, other than things I’m already doing?

The Exogamous Human Female

I've been thinking a lot about ethics lately, more even than morals. But you can't really separate the two from your total view of the universe when worldbuilding for an Alien Romance novel.

Chabad is offering a course, titled Talmudic Ethics about how the great Rabbis of yore solved ethical problems (find list of courses at chabad.org ). They developed a very methodical way of solving these problems, but I haven't taken the course and I know nothing of how they'd solve these kinds of problems. Here's an example of an old classic dilemma they've posed, a word problem:

You are waiting at the train tracks for the train to pass, suddenly you notice that there are 5 people tied down to the tracks. You want to save their lives (I hope) so you jump out of your car and as you are running over to the people, a man stops you and says: flip this switch to make the train change tracks - here is the catch -- if you do force the change, you will kill one person that is tied down to the other track. What should you do? Can you stand by and do nothing and see FIVE people get killed, or should you save five and CAUSE one person to die?

Now you have to understand I'm a Star Trek fan and sharpened my ethical teeth on James T. Kirk's problem solving method. (does it count as alien romance when you have a crush on a fictional character?) Remember the Kobayashi Maru?

And I have always flunked word problems in algebra even though I was very very good at algebra itself. I never manage to understand the problem correctly.

So my first solution is to yell at the man to turn the switch to divert the train, grab flares and anything sharp out of my car's trunk and run to release the single victim, tossing lit flares at the train as I run, preferably into brush where they'll start a visible fire. I'm not so good at running these days, so that might not be an option. But it's easier to get one person loose than 5, especially if the nit-wit manning the switch comes to help.

My second solution would be to yank off my blouse or dress or anything bright colored I was wearing and run at the train waving it down -- naked. (this is a Jewish ethics course so there's a modesty issue here but I just don't have that much modesty that I would hesitate to strip to save a life.) I might also drive my car onto the track and get out quick then run at the train waving anything I could strip off in time.

But before even thinking of how to solve the problem as presented, my questions to the person posing the problem would be about the missing vital details that I would have in a flash if this were a real-life problem.

Are the 5 people already dead -- or maybe the one person is already dead? Is there brush on the side of the tracks? Do I smoke and have a lighter in my pocket? What's in my purse?

What's in the trunk of my car? What am I wearing? Is the grade up or down and is there a cliff on one side? How fast is the train moving? Do I know anything about trains and tracks? There's a lot of computerized equipment routing trains today -- I could smash something and make the dispatcher stop the train by radio.

What kind of train is it, passenger or freight, and if passenger are there people aboard? If freight, what's it carrying? Is there a third siding track with no danger or some other danger? How fast can I run? How fast can the other person with the bright idea of switching tracks run?

Where does he get off trying to trap me into an ethical dilemma? Who does he think he is? Those are really 6 dummies on the track and this loud-mouth is my real enemy. He wants my fingerprints on that switch -- the train hits the dummies, derails and bankrupts some business his boss is trying to buy and I get the blame. I knock him out with the crowbar and call 911 while tossing flares to stop the train.

Or, having assessed my resources, I would consider derailing the train. My car trunk might yield a crowbar, or the guy standing there telling me to divert the train might have one. Pry up one section of track and the train is stopped. Now that might cost some insurance company millions of dollars -- in fact, it might well put me in jail for the rest of my life, but it would stop the train. Two of us working together might manage that (if he's not the bad guy).

Another bit of data missing is whether the guy giving the advice is the one who tied the people to the track -- and whether I know this guy or any of the victims or not. What if the 5 people had tortured me for days in a basement, and the one guy had rescued me?

See why I flunked word problems time and again all the way through school?

But let's play the school-kid game and take the problem at face value.

It is a classic no-win scenario, and the only thing that makes it a problem at all is the unwillingness of the test taker to think outside the box, to take personal risk, to accept personal damage, and to defy the authority of the test-giver and change the parameters of the test, as James Kirk did in the Kobayashi Maru test.

The test-administrator is trying to define your world for you, and to convince you that you know things you in fact do not know. (like whether or not you can save all the people) The way I approach these tests and life in general is that I make my own rules and no human being tells me what I can or can't do.

If you don't let the test administrator mess with your head, and you proceed on the assumption that it doesn't matter what the odds against you are, but you only care that you do the right thing -- you will change the rules of the game and generate new solutions that defy all odds. The impossible WILL happen -- or it won't. But you will have stayed true to your own character and not let any petty authority figure dictate the parameters of your world. You may die, but not with blood on your hands.

So can't you see The Authorities administering tests like this to Aliens who land on the White House lawn trying to find out if they share our ethics?

What has all this to do with the human female's exogamous tendencies and Alien Romance worldbuilding?

Now I get to make up the word-problem and mess with your head, if you let me.

Your soul-mate turns up in your life, but you defy all his rules and finally find out his big secret. He's an alien from outer space sent to Earth to fix our health-care delivery system for us. You are a major diversion that's kept him from his job. That has put him in trouble with his employer.

He has two solutions to offer Earth, mutually exclusive solutions. He says because he's in love with you and you're human, he will give Earth whichever solution you choose and it'll be free, initially. But you can only choose one plan.

While romancing you, he has set his orbiting ship to collect all the medical records data in computers and on paper all over the world, all the medications, searched the medicinal plants now growing, even ones not yet discovered, catalogued it all along with all human medical knowledge.

A) Now he can create a Best Practices database that will let any doctor prescribe the cure that has worked best for the most people with a given condition. All this would be Earth-based state-of-the-art equipment and data we could maintain and grow. But everyone would be treated as an "average" person, therefore people on the out flung tails of the bell curve would die -- shrinking our genetic diversity.

B) He can use all that data to program an army of robots (enough to serve the world) who are able to diagnose individuals and select a treatment based on that particular individual's idiosyncrasies. But the robots would only last two hundred years, and there would be a replacement and maintenance charge that he can't waive.

Either plan can be fully implemented within two weeks.

Then he tells you that you're pregnant by him and he has to leave in two weeks on a dangerous mission and might not be back. He can't take you with him - not won't, can't - because you would die. But you are soul mates, and he does love you, and he believes he will reincarnate as an Earth human with you again for a lifetime. But he must complete his job honorably for this lifetime to earn that. He can't decide which system to leave behind him -- you must choose for Earth and for the future you.

If you need a clue read this news item -- I'm hoping it'll still be available when you read this:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/BUSINESS/805110356

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Blogging, Computer Crashes and Me, Oh My

Yes, it's Monday and yes, I'm supposed to blog. But my main Dell PC went to blue screen hell on Thursday and life has been annoying ever since. The Dell is now back in the office but has been reformatted and I'm in the process of reloading everything, both via backup and from scratch. I finally finally found where my old emails resided in the backup but restoring them brought them back in one huge (2000+) lump. All my folders are gone. So now I have to... you know. Pound my head on the nearest hard surface.

Given that, I did blog yesterday at the HEA Cafe. I'm their 11th day gal. If you didn't know, I blog there on the 11th of the month. So you can go read my rant on Amazon trolls:

http://www.rwaonlinechapter.org/pubbedauthors/2008/05/11/how-thick-is-your-skin/

Also, my agent, Kristin Nelson, has been fully brilliant in her blogs of late. Lots of good pitching advice for writers there:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-pitch-paragraph-part-one.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-pitch-paragraph-part-two.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-pitch-paragraph-part-three.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part-four.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part-four_02.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part.html
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2008/05/building-pitch-paragraph-part-five.html

That should keep you busy and off the streets for a while. ~Linnea
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Bear Awareness Week

Not only is today (Sunday) Mother's Day, but it is also the start of
Bear Awareness Week.

And the connection to alien romance is...?

Admittedly, it's tenuous. It has to be were-bears and shapeshifters, and maybe berserk, bear-spirit-possessed Viking warriors who seem to have had a dark ages type of 'roid rage.

Anyway, an intrepid bunch of bear-loving, speculative Romance authors are going to get together to thrash out what it is we love about men who have a lot in common with bears.


Angie Fox, Carrie Masek, Sandy Lender, Cynthia Eden and Charlee Boyett-Compo are joining me on internet voices radio tonight between 9pm Eastern and eleven pm to give a whole new depth of meaning to Bear men and Romance.

We'd love some listeners, even for a little while.


For those whose taste in alien romance veers off the beaten track into exotic historicals, check out the last CRAZY TUESDAY/

In the last program, Jade Lee and Emily Bryan (aka
Diana Groe) talked about everything below the belt in honor of Earth
Day... from Brazilian waxes for courtesans, to castration, to foot
binding.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/CrazyTuesday.htm


FOR CHERRY PICKING SPECIALS, which is the irreverent and irregular
Sunday night-time show about Romance heroes and the animals they shift
into being when the right female comes along.

http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/rowena.htm


Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
http://www.rowenacherry.com
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com

Netherworld

I am currently reading Netherworld by Michelle Lang. Its the latest in the Shomi line that released Twist. I love the fact that Shomi features stories that don't have a niche in the mass market world.

Netherworld talks about living a simulated life. People are actually able to experience life as an Avatar in a computer game. They "feel" everything that happens to their Avatars, even down to sexual satisfaction. But by humans spending so much time inside the sims the AI is able to learn more about the human psyche until it becomes more powerful and demands that all humans become part of the machine. Which brings into question, what happens to the human soul once the humans reduce down into the machine? I'm not quite done with it yet but it brings up some interesting prospects. Plus its a great read.

It also kind of goes along with Margaret's post. How much human simulation is enough? At what point will robots become more like human or animal clones that are imprinted with the images of pets or even people that we've lost. As technology becomes more advanced it will be something that our conscious and our governments will need to decide. I guess it all will come down to the value of the human soul.

I have to admit that it would be nice to have a replica of my cocker spaniel around. But would I see the essence of what was Dauber when I looked into a replicant's eyes and would it feel the same. I'm not sure these are questions that apply to my generation but I am fairly certain they are not too far off in the future.

Lifelike Robots

Reflecting on predictions of glossy futuristic technology envisioned in cartoons and utopian SF, I’ve decided I don’t want the flying car, after all. Imagine the chaos if two of those collided in mid-air (not unlikely, considering the way many people drive). What I want is the household robot. Robert Heinlein’s DOOR INTO SUMMER predicted commercially viable cleaning robots by the 1970s. Up to now, so far as I know, all we have in this country is that self-propelling vacuum cleaner, the Roomba. The Japanese, however, are working on more complex automatons. I found several articles by Googling “Japan robots emotion.” (Give it a try.) Engineering students at a Tokyo university are experimenting with robots that have rubbery faces capable of simulating six emotional states in response to key words: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise, and disgust. The project leader says that in order to work around people, “robots need to handle complex social tasks.” In Japan, robots already perform many varied jobs, not only factory work, but such tasks as acting as receptionists, serving tea, and spoon-feeding the elderly. Japanese culture, according to this article, views robots as “friendly helpers.” With an aging population, they expect to rely on automata to replace human employees in the workforce and care for the aged. On the emotional front, currently available are a soft, dog-shaped device and a furry character called Paro, resembling a baby seal, both designed for “pet” therapy in nursing homes.

Even robots that aren’t cuddly, much less as human-like as the maid on THE JETSONS, seem to evoke an anthropomorphizing response. People get attached to them. I read somewhere that Roomba owners have been known to name and adorn their robot vacuum cleaners. A talking robot on wheels was once lent to a family for research (according to one of those online articles); when it had to be taken away for an upgrade, the child of the family cried. “People aren’t going to be able to throw away robots when they break,” one researcher says. How small a step is that kind of reaction from considering the robots so nearly human that we’d feel guilty about “enslaving” them—especially if they do advance to the point of having some degree of intellect and consciousness (or the ability to simulate it)?

This quandary comes to life in a delightful poem, “Too Human by Half,” by Suzette Haden Elgin in her recent book TWENTY-ONE NOVEL POEMS, a collection of narrative poetry on SF themes. DearCompanion.com supplies elder-care robots constructed in roughly human shape so the aged clients will feel comfortable with them. The problem arises when the machine wears out. “Mama” protests angrily, “Replace JANE?. . . Just because she’s getting OLD?” The solution: When DearCompanion designed its next line of assistive robots “they made every one of the units look exactly like a broom.” You need this poetry collection. Really you do. :) It even includes suggestions for discussion topics. Information for ordering the book is on Elgin’s home page: www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/