window shot

That's Max reclining and Jenny stretching in my photo. That's the favorite cat window. I need to tree the tree. It's a volunteer box elder and I love the way it makes the air green coming through the window. It also tends to block my satellite dishes, so it gets trimmed in a rather inartistic and haphazard way.

That tree makes my living room seem peaceful. Trees do that.

EIther/Or on the Mosque

Anent, and yes it's archaic but a good word -- about the Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero... The US of A either supports, encourages and practices freedom of religion or it doesn't. There's no in-between.

It's disheartening to see the ooze that's going on. Such things just make it easier for Big Government to lap away at our basic freedoms. It has already become dicey to stage non-violent protests, even silent ones.

We must have the freedom to protest. So let the anti-mosquers protest all they want. They are just showing the world what bigots they are and how cowardly they are.

The extreme right wins when they scare people into such actions. Glennie Beckster and Rusho Limbo laugh all the way to the bank.

Disgusting.

The non-newshour

An Hour’s Worth of Non-News
This is unscientific, of course, but eye-opening. Just what is the local news telling us? Not much, if you break it down.I kept a tally on Monday night’s 5:00-6:00 local news on WCVB, the ABC affiliate in Boston.

During that hour, they covered 35 news and general interest stories. Wow, you say? But wait, they also aired 10 “teasers” (the topic of news they are going to cover in a minute or so), 24 commercials, and 25 promo ads for local and network programs to be aired later.

The local weather was covered in four different slots, sports in two. Stories about celebrities got two stories. There were four crime stories, two involving Hispanic men, and two implicating teenagers. Nine stories required talking head “experts.” Six of those were white men, three were women. The women experts appeared on national news stories, and were government spokes.
There were no stories about the environment, unless you count three “general interest” ones: great white sharks off Cape Cod beaches, felling of the tree Anne Frank wrote about, and a follow-up on the Sea World killer whale that drowned its trainer earlier this year.

Five other reports were about fires, car accidents, a sleep study (not local), and salmonella in eggs.WCVB has a lot of reporters, and they are racially and ethnically diverse, but except for a couple of them, it’s difficult to know just what their “beat” is, in journalist terms.

Do you wonder why we’re so dumbed-down? None of the stories had a context, or background information.

Readercon

Readercon this year seems a little smaller.

Pirates

Am I dense or is there something I don't understand? Piracy is unacceptable behavior, is it not? The longer this stand-off goes on, the more they celebrate in Somalia. I seem to recall some old-fashioned virtues, such as honor, courage. Certainly the Captain shows those virtues... are these renegades going to walk (or swim) away from this? And when do civilized, and I use the word rather loosely, people and governments shut down the pirates?

Crazy-making.

Update on JEMMA7729

Now that JEMMA7729 has been out a year and is still selling steadily, time to do something else. I get lots of feedback on the novel. What? What'd you say? You haven't read it yet? Well, think about it.

Feedback -- The first question I'm asked is: when is the sequel coming out? That's a good question. There is one. It's still in a file on my desktop. Nearly nearly finished, just smoothing out and plumping up. Actually, it's been in draft a long time. I wrote it right after I finished Jemma. I'm glad I did that, because it has the same rage at its heart that made me write the first book.

JEMMA7729 was written in 2003-2004. (Takes a loooong time to get a book out!) Remember back then? I was outraged that my government was going into Iraq (still am, for that matter), and about the fear=mongering that was going on, the angst of Americans and the lies of the administration. That is still bubbling in JAY2. There's no lapse of time between the novels. JAY2 picks up where JEMMA7729 left off.

But Jay is not Jemma. Totally different critter. She looks like Jemma, sounds like Jemma, and there are personality similarities, but Jay has no life experience, no highs and lows. And not much moral compass, either.

She's fun to write.

One more thing -- I've taken some hits from people who hate the cover. I love the cover. Yes, it's pulpy. So what? Besides that, the artist, David Willicome, has been nominated for the Aurora Award for best cover. We'll find out at WorldCon if he won.

a review

CM . . . Volume XIV Number 18. . . .May 2, 2008

Phoebe Wray.
Calgary, AB: Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2008.
220 pp., pbk., $15.95.
ISBN 978-1-894063-40-1.

Grades 9 and up / Ages 14 and up.

Review by Ronald Hore.

*** /4

"This is Jemma7729, stable class," he said to the audience. "Don't let this good appearance fool you, people. She is aggressive and clever. Despite the fact that she has had every advantage," and he turned to me, his voice dripping with venom, "she has been a disciplinary problem since she was five years old."

He came to stand beside me. Tears stung behind my eyes. "She's a disgrace to her sex! Two incidents of hitting already." The audience responded with gasps and whispers, and the tension in the room went up a notch. I glanced at him then looked at my feet. He addressed the crowd again, "She wouldn't confirm her first choosing. She obviously feels she is superior to other girls of her class."

"No! I don't. It's just that – I want to do something else with my life."

The room crackled with tension. He turned his head slowly, like some sort of reptile. "And what would that be, Jemma7729?"

Trapped! "I – I don't know."

There was a brief silence, then he laughed and the audience did too.

A whisper from beyond the lights made my skin crawl. "Delete her," said a voice at the edge of my hearing."

Jemma7729 is a science fiction novel that takes place in the near future after civil unrest has brought an authoritarian government into being. Women are accused of most of the problems leading to the unrest, and so they are now considered second-class citizens, both protected and restrained. The Administrative Government of North America, the AGNA, rules with an iron hand: everything is regulated, people are divided by class, live in domed megacities, and told the countryside beyond the domes is toxic.

The protagonist of the story is Jemma7729, a girl of age five when the tale begins. She belongs to one of the "privileged" classes where the women are considered "stable." Her father is Regional Administrator for the Environment for the L.A. Basin; her mother is a model wife who holds spy-parties where she can gather information on her guests to pass along to the authorities. Jemma7729 has a rebellious streak and a zest for living that is frowned on.

When she turns seven, Jemma7729 must make a career choice on her official Choosing Day. She has the options of: Wife, Fiction Writer, Facilities designer/Interior designer, Corporate assistant, Listener, Museum worker. But Jemma7729 has been exposed to life beyond the authorized view, and she wants none of these. This situation brings her into conflict with the AGNA who have the power to alter her independent mind into a smiling zombie-state or delete her completely. Jemma7729 escapes into the country and becomes plain "Jemma" who is, in the eyes of the government, a terrorist, but in the eyes of many rebellious people, a heroine. If she is caught, the penalty is permanent deletion.

The story traces her growth, from an angry child to a mature young woman, still fighting against authority for her rights and the rights of others, especially on behalf of the suppressed women. The book is described by one writer as a "feminist dystopian novel." Well-written and thoughtful, the novel describes a brutal world we would today consider gone slightly-mad.

Recommended.

Ronald Hore, involved with writer's groups and workshops for several years, retired from the business world in Winnipeg, MB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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