Guy Stewart's Blog

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Fantasy Trope: Fantastic Comedy
Current Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpIJNGMh0IQ

Aarav Tlak shook his head and said, “Horses don’t talk.”

Kyla Das sniffed and said, “Shows what you know.”

“There’s no such thing as magic; there’s no such thing as a talking ani...”

“To reiterate what I said, you’re showing your ignorance by making such a categorical and sweeping statement. Are you including animals who have been trained or recognize commands?”

“Of course not! Animals can be smart and trainable, they just can’t talk.”

She gave him a long look then said, “So you’re saying that no animal on Earth can communicate?”

“No! You’re twisting my words. Animals communicate in a thousand different ways – some we can’t comprehend, like elephants talking below our level of hearing. But you’re talking about...about...about...talking like we’re talking and animals don’t do that.”

“How do you know?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

“I could say that you’re a bit of an animal,” Kyla said with a smirk.

“I am not!” Aarav exclaimed.

She snorted then said, “You’ve never had to deal with yourself after you and your gf haven’t had a chance to make out.”

Sputtering, Aarav exclaimed, “That’s not fair!”

“That’s what criminals all say.”

He glared at her, took a deep breath, glared a while longer and finally said, “Proof would be you introducing me to some animal and then me and the animal having a conversation.”

“You’d accept that as proof?”

He gave her a funny look and she burst into laughter. Blushing furiously, he said, “Of course I’d accept it as proof! I’d hardly be a dispassionate scientist if I ignored an actual animal actually speaking to me.”

“Any animal?”

Aarav scowled, “I don’t like the direction this conversation is taking. What do you mean by that?”

She held out a stethoscope and said, “Put these into your ears.”

His eyes grew wide, he took them in hand, and said, “This isn’t funny anymore.”

“It’s not supposed to be. Warm up the end of that thing and put it on my belly – and prepare to be amazed.”

Names: ♀Philippines, Bangladesh; ♂ India, CroatiaImage: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

Few of you who read my blog POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS, know that I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes about four years ago. At the time, I was writing on another blog about my life married to my wife, who was diagnosed with breast cancer some 11 years ago; some time later, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease; and finally I was identified as a having Type 2 Diabetes. Being who I am, I dove into researching all three of these with all of my intellect and skills of doing online research.
The main reason was that I felt I NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING other than sit around with my hands tucked under my butt. For the fourteen years I wrote on GUY'S GOTTA TALK ABOUT..., I kept the two blogs separate.
But I felt it was necessary to post my GGTA blog here on PIE...not ONLT that I am absolutely certain that what I wrote is liable to irritate SOMEONE, if not the reporter who wrote the British newspaper THE GUARDIAN's article as he'll never read it...nevertheless, if he DID, I'm sure it'd bug him (even just a tiny bit.), but because it's important.
It's important for people to know that they CAN MAKE CHOICES and that no matter how oppressive our world is (though it's our own perceptions that have led so many people I know to despair that the world TODAY is worse than it has ever been in all of...well, at least recent history...anyway, this is just to let you know that I've imported this from my OTHER blog because I think it's important for me to say this...

Taken from:10/12/25GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…TYPE 2 DIABETES #36: Indictment of an Insincere Rant I Read In An Old Issue of The Guardian

For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes two weeks ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!

FROM Sunday, December 4, 2022

ANY diet I submit to will be for the remainder of my life. I WILL NOT say I get this whole thing of living with my diabetes yet. I’ve had Culver’s and Dairy Queen treats. I don’t live in a monastery on a mountain top! But I need to control them. I need to substitute FRUITS and vegetables for sauces and rice. Make better menu choices that EMPHASIZE meat and vegetables rather than rice and nacho cheese…(we’re going out tonight, Mexican!)

Like I said, I’m not good at this yet. But I’m working on it. It’s just I have to remind myself that I CAN’T dawdle anymore. This I important. I’ve damaged my body with 65 or so bad habits…

In case you were wondering? This isn’t the last you’ve heard me on the subject of “diet” – and I’m not preaching at you. I’m trying to figure out how to live longer with my diabetes!

ALMOST THREE YEARS LATER…

[As I get a bit ranty in a few paragraphs, I’d like to say that I am NOT a fan of Big Pharma and have been known to rant against THEM at times. But I really, really really dislike insincerity exhibited by people who have a captive and sympathetic audience…]

I now take Ozempic (see LOTS of my previous posts!) and a veritable cornucopia of drugs that help me help me live a happy and productive life.

So, let’s start with the one I’ve had and heard DIRE warnings about. First words from the (OBVIOUSLY EVIL AND ENTIRELY CORRUMPT Pharmaceutical Establishment)

“Metformin-containing medicines are available by prescription only and are used along with diet and exercise help control blood sugar in a number of ways. These include helping the body respond better to the insulin it makes naturally, decreasing the amount of sugar the liver makes, and decreasing the amount of sugar the intestines absorb from food. It is available as a single-ingredient product and also in combination with other medicines used to treat diabetes. See FDA Approved metformin- containing Medicines. Common side effects of metformin include diarrhea, nausea, and upset stomach.”

I’d like to note here that these are ALSO side effects of having children, working a job, eating too much, exercising too much, NOT exercising enough, and tax season.

The deep concerns of others is that metformin will cause Vitamin B12 deficiency, metallic taste, and weight loss (HOW IS THAT A CONCERN??).

The main concern of our fringe friends is “Lactic acidosis, a potentially life-threatening buildup of lactic acid in the blood”. This can make you feel very tired, breathless and faint, so your doctor may check the vitamin B12 level in your blood. If your vitamin B12 levels become too low, vitamin B12 supplements will help.

So, while researching this, I was stunned to read the following in that paragon of British Journalism, THE GUARDIAN: “The American Diabetes Association takes millions from companies that stand to profit from our reliance on drugs. Is that affecting their guidance?”

After several paragraphs of ranting about drug makers and the GLORIES of “just tell people to eat less carbs and no one will need any Type 2 Diabetes drugs ever again!!!!” (That was never written, but constantly and consistently proclaimed)> The closest the author (“Neil Barsky, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and investment manager [and] the founder of The Marshall Project.” (Wikipedia writes: “… a journalism nonprofit intended to shed light on the United States criminal justice system, as well as to promote prison abolition.” How this makes Mr. Barsky an expert on Type 2 Diabetes (he is a Type 2 diabetic), I’m not sure as I’m also a Type 2 Diabetic…)

He states emphatically: “The ADA is far from the only obstacle to widespread adoption of a low-carb diet. Absent a national health education initiative that links carbohydrates to the diabetes epidemic, low-carb clinicians will be a voice in the wilderness. It can be challenging for many people with diabetes to forgo the breads, sweets, pastas and starches that form the basis of many diets. And given the dearth of healthy eating options on the shelves of many American supermarkets, some clinicians I spoke with, each of whom was dedicated to their patients’ wellbeing, said it was more effective to simply prescribe their patients pharmaceuticals.”

So, aside from it being “challenging” to anyone who is Type 2 diabetic; and the (really? Where does this man live? He can’t shop at the places I shop – like CUB, Rainbow, Target, and other easily, widely present grocery stores) “the dearth of healthy eating options on the shelves of many American supermarkets”…they’re all there. Even at the corner FASTANDEASY Mart…they OPTIONS are there.

The problem is that the Human Species has EVOLVED to find the EASIEST way to get their calories. This writer, in order to BLAME OTHERS for his own condition, finds it easier to PREACH the idea of “BLAME OTHERS” for the choices most Americans make all the time, every time, and if you check the annual profits of MacDonald’s and any other restaurant on Earth, available to the fabulously NOT wealthy. According to him, “The losers are the millions of people with diabetes who suffer amputations, blindness, neuropathy, often daily shoot themselves with insulin and eat carbohydrate-rich foods because they simply are not informed about their healthier options. It is not too late for the ADA to, loudly and in no uncertain terms, tell people with diabetes the truth.”

I’m unsure what conclave of Humans entirely insulated from First World societies this writer lives in, but writing this, he provided a MASSIVE boost to the millions of First Worlders searching for someone to blame – instead of choosing not to stuff their faces with fattening, truly horrible foods rather than saying to themselves, “Nah, I don’t need to order two triple-burgers with the works, and a quadruple order of fries with cheese sauce, and my favorite flavored sugar syrup water! I sure wish someone told me that there were sensible alternatives! No one ANYWHERE HAS EVER MENTIONED THAT I DON’T HAVE TO EAT SO MUCH THAT I FEELING LIKE PUKING…or fall into a FOOD COMA the moment I sit down in my overstuffed recliner…”

And as always, I’ll remind readers (and Mr. B) that when I point a finger at anyone, I’m firmly aware that the other three fingers are pointing directly back at me…

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/17/ada-american-diabetes-association-big-pharma
Image: https://www.hcd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/living-well-with-diabetes.jpg

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”
I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Without further ado, short story observations by Shane Tourtelotte– with a few from myself…

I’ve been reading Shane since his first story was published in "Mortal Instruments" in the ANALOG February 1998 issue. He went on to write some forty-two OTHER stories, mostly for Stan Schmidt at ANALOG.
When Shane and famed SF writer, Michael A. Burstein (I'm also a fan of his!) wrote the short story “Bug Out!”, BURSTEIN NOTES: “...we needed an idea for a story. Shane brought with him the beginning of the idea for it. As soon as I heard the idea, I started to contribute more ideas to go along with it, Shane did as well, and we realized that this story would work as a collaboration.”

“But, I'm inherently a nonlinear writer. Shane, on the other hand, likes to start a story from the first word and keep writing until he reaches the end. It did turn out that we both work with outlines, we decided to write an outline for the story first, with each scene numbered. Then one of us took the odd-numbered scenes and the other one took the even-numbered scenes. That way, on a particular day. Shane could write all his scenes from beginning to end, and I could bounce around within my scenes and write whatever I wanted . Then we figured we would trade scenes and rewrite each other.”

Me: To tell you the truth, I’ve NEVER written ANYTHING with someone else. While it worked well for them, it seems like it was more than a LITTLE serendipitous! Honestly, I’ve pretty much hidden my adult SF writing from most people – except of course, my family! My daughter asked me to be a first reader for both her trilogy and her most recent gryphon fantasy; which I happily did! She’s now my publisher as I’m going to take a stab at publishing MARTIAN HOLIDAY myself... (for anyone who’s wondering: “On Mars in 2517, five million Humans live under The Five Domes. But a million others are not considered Human and live hidden lives. There have been 400 hundred years of relative peace. But the Unified Faith in Humanity and finding alien artifacts proving that Humans Are Not Alone is about to change Mars. Revolution seethes. On the brink of upheaval, three natural Humans, four Artificial Humans, and an AI might lead instead...a Reformation to save Mars.”)

Shane Tourtelotte said: “Stanley Schmidt wrote a book entitled Aliens and Alien Societies” I have this book! “…‘Engineering Organisms’…he discusses various means of locomotion in animals…One paragraph on water mobility mentions jet and rocket propulsion, used by some octopi and squids, adding, ‘it's a little hard to see how (the usual sudden and irregular squirts) could be adapted to routine, continuous, long-term transportation. Two pages before that, he also notes that ‘science fiction writers take statements like that as challenges.’”

“Well, I certainly did. My solution was peristalsis; rhythmic muscular contractions that gets your lunch where it’s going could also serve as a continuous propulsive mechanism. It would take a lot of specialization to make it work well, but hey, so did flying. The next idea arose because I imagined these alien creatures as being of whale-like size--naturally more interesting in a story than having them the size of trout.” This mental exercise resulted in the short story “Live Bait”, which appeared in ANALOG’s July/August 1999 issue.

I had a similar experience with my story, “Fairy Bones”.
I live near a park reserve, and while there are no sapient fairies who live there, there are (during certain years) abundant fireflies. That’s the foundation of the story. I add a grandmother whose grandson is “forced on her” while his parents are off planet, and he’s obviously surly and pretends disinterest in everything his grandmother is doing.
She’s doing research into a unique lifeform she’s discovered in the nearby marsh and asks him to help. Bored, he reluctantly agrees – and discovers that she’s been capturing and categorizing creatures that look remarkable like our image of fairies.

She and her grandson bond over their adventure together and end up being a tight pair – and also intent on keeping their secret…while at the same time knowing someone ELSE knows the secret, too. 
There's more than ONE way real life can spill over into story life!
References: https://www.sfsite.com/01b/mb288.htm , “Fairy Bones”, November 15, 2015, CAST OF WONDERS (podcast) https://www.castofwonders.org/2015/11/episode-181-fairy-bones-by-guy-stewart/ Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: “Grave Clouds for the variant where the weather is simply miserable at graveyards and other creepy areas, and which is possibly a sister trope to this. See also Evil Is Not Well Lit…”Current Event: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/afterlife/scary-graveyard1.htm

Niaria Xiong-Walker squinted, trying to see through the gathering mist that apparently hung over the cemetery every night. She said, “How can mist hang over this place EVERY night? Fog’s a function of temperature, humidity, and dew point.”

Seth Bakhsh stood near an obelisk, pitted from ages of lower-than-water pH acid rain that drizzled from the Rochester, NY sky on a regular basis, giving it the dubious distinction of the being the American city with the most rainy days and its unofficial slogan, “If it rains, it’s Rochester”. He said, “It’s the oldest municipal graveyard in the US and has 400,000 dead people in it. Don’t you think that all those ghosts might have an effect on the weather?”

Niaria snorted and said, “They don’t even act as creeped out as you are doing in my parents old village in Nigeria! You’re a wimp, Seth!”

He snorted just as loudly, “I prefer to think that I’m prepared for all eventualities – even ephemeral ones.”

Shaking her head, she tapped her tablet computer and plugged in a cord. “I’m going to see if there’s any truth to the old wives tale that cemeteries are always foggy and creepy at night.”

“How many have you tested?” he asked. He usually ignored her scientific researches in favor of tapping her fascination in anime movies by presenting her with the latest rerun of her favorite Miyazaki film.

“Sixteen,” she replied.

“What?” he stepped from the obelisk, saying, “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this?”

“Duh,” she grabbed the tip of the cord and pulled, a long sensor extended, glowing blue.

“What’s that?”

“A data staff. It collects information and feeds it into a program I wrote.”

“So you can detect monsters?”

“Nothing so solid. Ephemerals. Like you said.”

“Ghosts?” he breathed the word – and his breath fogged in front of his face. “How come it’s so cold here?”

She shook her head, “Because the temperature’s low, dummy.”

“No – I mean it wasn’t cold a second ago and now I can see my breath.”

She looked at her tablet then back up at Seth, “The data confirm your sensations.”

“Duh.”

She looked around, scowling. “But there isn’t any reason…” As she said the words, something congealed out of the fog. It wasn’t humaniform, more like a lizard-like; possibly saurian, large as the obelisk.

Seth said, “It’s coming out of that gravestone...”

“It’s a monument…”

“Whatever it is, I think it has big claws.”

Names: ♀ India, Hmong, English-Scottish; ♂ Hebrew, Pakistan
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…While working on a new short story that takes place in the skies of a “super-gas giant” planet called RIVER.PLUS: I’ve been searching my writing lately to find our WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY.PLUS: Humans will live in society and while it’s clear societies change, we seem to think that all the things we dislike most will vanish – because somehow, OUR vision of a perfect world is the ONLY one and EXCLUDES anyone who would disagree with us…(read: “me”)…
In the skies of River, a story developed that had a weird and at the same time FAMILIAR milieu…mining on the Iron Range and what that wrought from its heyday and what it left behind when the iron was mined, corporations moved on the strip mine OTHER societies, and people were left standing mute in the wreckage of worthless piles of rock and poisonous taconite tailings…

I wrote to the editor of a website I stumbled on during my research and found LOTS of soil for my imaginary world!
“To the Current Editor of the Minnesota Reformer:

“I'm retired and a writer now, and while building a society that lives in the skies of a gas giant in another star system far from the Solar System, I started to think of what it was that formed the foundation of the society in this remote place that supplies the "universe at large" with gases and compounds birthed from the skies of the planet River.

“I realized the kind of place in my science fiction story would have some similarities to the Iron Range.

“So, I wanted to delve into the motivations of the kind of people who would move to and live in such a far-off place, and work under such challenging conditions as those of the iron mines. In my imaginary world, they are also divided into two very different societies. I read Aaron Brown's essay and suddenly realized I had a much better view of the humans who were living in this very alien world and in sometime conflict with a wealthier, more stable part of their world — and living with tensions very similar to those I saw around C-I between the Range and the Cities.”

OK – lots of introduction for a simple idea. While River is an imaginary gas giant, it has a plethora of abundant lifeforms both naturally adapted to it, and lifeforms that Humans have engineered to live in the skies of River. In this story, called (at the moment!) "Hunting For DNA”, the main character is a young adult who has discovered a friend who has interests aligned with his own – which is to get a SOLID sample of the DNA of a natural denizen of River called a “hookhunter” that feeds on much smaller creatures called bobbing shrimp. He wants better sample because there are rumors that the DNA of the hookhunters contains genes that may be infinitely cloneable – in other words, it may create tissue that is immortal.

So, his “girlfriend” Murri is excited to help him. Unbeknownst to HIM, she’s not as interested in getting samples of hookhunter DNA as she is in getting samples of HIS DNA…because she’s been hired to do so because Gordon himself is an artificially structured Human. His dads know. Murri knows.

He doesn’t.

All good, right? But I’d only put a TINY bit of research into developing the society that Gordon, Murri, his dads, the hookhunters and the bobbing shrimp…and several dozen OTHER lifeforms and characters I’ve developed…live in.

And now, all of a sudden, based on memories and reading I’ve done on the interaction of the Iron Range and the Twin Cities…I have the society of a world slowly coming into focus…

I’ve meandered enough for now. Expect more later!

Today’s Source: https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/09/28/the-humbling-of-giants-the-rise-and-decline-of-the-iron-range-essay/
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Interesting Stuff The Might Apply To Mining Asteroids: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgej7gzg8l0o Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Current Event: “The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair, an interactive outdoor event which focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional 16th Century ‘England-like’ fantasy kingdom.”

Svenja Johannson puttered around the edge of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. She crossed her arms over her chest, tossed her platinum blonde hair and said, “I was hoping for a bit more authenticity.

Matias Gallagher, strawberry blonde hair curled like a swim cap over his head, shook his head and said, “Then you should have tried out for ‘Castle Life’.”

She snorted – a sound worthy of a horse, Matias thought – “That’s just as fake.”

He scowled at her and said, “Just because you Germans have all kinds of castles...”

“Not ‘all kinds of castles’ – Wartburg Castle. That is the only castle.”

He shook his head and said, “Speaking of Martin Luther, what makes you think you’d even like the real Renaissance?”

“Are you kidding? My ancestors lived then, there was no pollution, no noise, and definitely no people!”

“What’s wrong with people?” Matias asked as a pair of teenaged boys in basketball shorts, wearing high-topped basketball shoes and suggestive slogans, walked past them using an F-bomb every other word. They looked at him and Svenja. One flipped Matias the bird, the other asked Svenja if she wanted to engage in a sexual act. After Svenja fired a crude rejoinder back at him and Matias leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, flashing both his six-pack and expanding his pecs, the other boy waved him away. The two of them faded into the mob of 21st Century Minnesotans stuffing their faces the way they did at the State Fair and pretending they were in the 16th Century.

Svenja glared at Matias. Matias sighed, “Point.” He paused and said, “Let’s just enjoy the RenFest for what it is.”

Svenja scowled as a parade of knights in armor entered the Festival grounds, the earth trembling under the pounding hooves. The steel plate, gold trim, and silver filigree flashed in the brilliant afternoon light. There was a coolness in the air, a tiny bite of autumn hinting at the winter not far away. There seemed to be hundreds of knights prancing by. “There are so many...” she said.

“What?” Matias shouted. “I can’t hear you!”

“There are so many knights! Where did they come from?” The sun abruptly dipped behind a cloud. There was a flash of light and clap of thunder, yet when Matias pressed his hands over his ears, it seemed that only he and Svenja did so. Others around them seemed oblivious to the darkness and cold. “What’s happening, Matias?” she shouted.

“I don’t know...”

An instant later, the sun came out again. Matias blinked in surprise and Svenja stepped closer to him, grabbing his arm, long fingernails digging into his muscle. The first thing he noticed was the stench of open sewer and the legless man on sitting on the ground in front of them, obviously cussing them out, but in a language Matias and Svenja had never heard before.

In fact, it had never been spoken in North America – and wouldn’t be for another millenium…

Names: ♀ German, Swedish ; ♂ Norwegian, IrishImage: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTTE8oI39xBTNW9-Gc8z4589YkNO7B72OWlrw&s

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stored. Know was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways The rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.
When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”
I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”
We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!”
Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.

I searched for Tiananmen – aka “Gate of Heavenly Peace”, or HP for short, said, “Unprepared in every way, the trip to the alien world will kill you. Just as it killed me. I’d have died permanently if the Aliens hadn’t been waiting for me the moment I popped out of transspace.” There was silence. She smiled, looked at me, adding, ‘The only real complication is tat we’ll need the total cooperation of Master Cheat and All-around Pain-in-our-collective-posterior, Sturdlan Vilbix.”

The Board Room exploded in the jeers, catcalls, boos, and an amazing calling-down-of-curses.

The man was the personal manager Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, named after a famous Kazakh singer and song-writer. She was a Sixth Generation descendant of the last Human to walk on the Moon in the 20th Century – Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the 11th human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he became the Last Man to Walk On the Moon – the Last Lunar Walker in other words.

I touched a switch and said, “Excuse me.” Amplified to a level that made everyone but me wince, I reduced the output to merely loud enough to be heard still winced, but that didn’t bother me. Sturdlan Vilbix had swept into our lives unwanted, the Gang of Four – my grandchildren, Noah, Natalie, Ronan and Lennon introduced themselves as Sturdlan Vilbix grabbed me by the bicep and squeezed. It HURT! He had muscles trained under the full gravity of the world that had nurtured Humanity into intelligence. Now, here he was steering me further into Jax Lunar Lumber, using gestures to station dozens of drones in the ceiling, on the floor, on desks, in trees, and anywhere their cameras – I was pretty sure the glittering light twirling around the back and belly of each one was a camera designed to record, broadcast, and recreate every scene, every motion, and every nuance of the Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Lunar Walker – or “Six-T-Granddaughter-OT Last Lunar Walker”. That quickly morphed to antichrist, or 6T for short.

As suddenly as he’d assaulted me, Turdland crumpled to the ground, all of the cameras focused on his incapacitation. We, the Jax family, had endured exactly as much of his self-important rhetoric as we could handle. I’d delivered the ultimatum, “I will remind you Sturdlan, one more time: ‘Just to show you there’s no hard feelings, the venue you’ve been offered is owned by Jax Lunar Lumber, Limited Liability Lunar Company.’ I was under no illusions that I had won anything but a brief reprieve from conflict between myself, family, and this man. However, 6T said we needed him – for what, I don’t know.

A text message flashed across the back of my hand in distinct ultraviolet. Not that it would be secret from everyone, but most people wouldn’t be running around with eyes sensitive to UV light. I could see in the most common frequencies used for communication.

It was from 6T. It read, “Meet me in orbit.” I acknowledged it and looked across the throng. Turdland was gone. And 6T was gone. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. A rapidly branching probability tree presented itself through my brain booster. None of the branches looked promising – though, squinting, there was very, very long branch that ended with a fascinating cluster of branches.

Sturdlan was in the center of a globe of woven leaves. His gravy train was nowhere near him – in fact, she was somewhere in the skies of Venus! The Solar System was at peace, and hovering somewhere beyond the Oort Cloud, was swarm of very small ships that each had a life signature.

They surrounded Sturdlan. Smiling, I sped to the nearest Space Elevator that would bring me closest to where 6T was signaling and booked a ticket. This was going to be an interesting meeting…

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YkAeUwwE2aksDqd5tgwyec-970-80.jpg.webp

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota. Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction. After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

We in the speculative fiction world seem to feel like we have a tight bead on the weird – no more so than when “AI” suggests that “For future space settlements, new family structures will be needed to address the unique challenges of microgravity, radiation, and isolation, possibly forming by necessity rather than just biological ties…”

Clearly the programmer that wrote the AI’s program (or put the words in the AI’s figurative mouth) had never read the 1912 classic, RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE by Zane Grey. (“…a Western novel by Zane Grey, first published by Harper & Brothers in 1912. Considered by scholars to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre, the novel has been called ‘the most popular western novel of all time’.)

For a 113-year-old novel, it has some EXTREMELY STRANGE “family units” encompassed in the story. Not by ANY means unusual to most of us, is the Mormon family unit. I’ll leave you to mull that over and turn to the even WEIRDER family units in this seemingly innocuous “Western”.

Don’t get me wrong, I found my copy for free on a discard pile at my neighborhood GOODWILL store and picked it up, knowing it was a classic, and put it on my library shelf. I finally picked it up a couple weeks ago moved by a wild impulse to read something entirely outside of both my interest range and beyond any compulsion to read anything even vaguely resembling a genre outside of my life experiences. After I started it, I have been reading it in mostly utter amazement.

So far, the most astonishing thing is that the sexual mores of the second decade of the 20th Century are (publicly) so entirely different from those of this second decade of the 21st. The main example is the two lead male characters are madly in love with the two lead female characters. If Grey had written it in 2012, the men and women (or both men or both women or all four of them) would have tumbled into bed two pages after they met and after 200 pages interspersed with lurid (or off-stage) “lovemaking” (aka sex in all of its kinkiness), they would have thought about getting married, skipped that and spent the rest of the book having sex…oh, and Grey might have found a few pages to tell the rest of an incredibly…alien…story.

Example: one of the characters had a good friend who died after she nursed her from an illness to her ultimate death.
Example: turns out one of the characters is the daughter of a truly horrible man who molded her into a criminal and murderer.
Example: while sex of any kind is usually irrelevant to the story line, most novels (SF and F) find some excuse to include either implicit sex or explicit sex in all but the MOST middle of middle-grade novels. If ANY novel includes coarse language, most of the words have sexual connotations and are freely employed.

So, back to ROTPS. Another pairing is between a character who has murdered dozens of other humans (on purpose or for his own financial gain or out of sheer anger at alleged or actual slights and an extremely wayward female character who knows all of this and falls madly in love with him anyway. Together, they plan to take what’s left of her money, leave it all behind and get married in another state.

The biggest point of the novel is one even the BRILLIANT AI didn’t even hint at: polygamous marriages. It takes place in Utah after the Church of Latter-Day Saints has fled their founding state of Ohio because they were chased out due to their commandment to enter into polygamous marriages. The largest “family” mentioned in non-Mormon literature was from the Old Testament. “King Solomon was said to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines, for a total of 1,000 women in his harem.” How about “Ziona Chana? (d. 2021) in India, he had 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law, and 33 grandchildren for a total of 181 family members.”

“Polygamy is most often found in sub-Saharan Africa, where 11% of the population lives in arrangements that include more than one spouse.”

And what about SERIAL marriages? American “Glynn Wolfe married 31 times, fathered approximately 40 children and divorced 30 times.”

What OTHER kinds of families might there be? I mean, Humans are Human. Moving them to Mars, alien worlds, the Asteroid Belt, generational starships, or even able to instantaneously leap across space and time…you’ll STILL be dealing with Humans. How about inanimate objects? “Eija-Riitta Eklöf married the Berlin Wall in 1979, Erica Eiffel married the Eiffel Tower: Eiffel participated in a commitment ceremony with the Eiffel Tower in Paris; and Australian Jodi Rose married the Le Pont du Diable, a bridge in France.

The AI informing me that “new family structures will be needed to address the unique challenges of microgravity, radiation, and isolation, possibly forming by necessity rather than just biological ties…” says more about some programmer trying to excuse their own preference for “shocking” family arrangements. NONE of the things the web says will drastically alter Human relationships regarding family are anything more than weather and location. What OTHER “necessity” could occur that would lead to “new family structures”?

Give me a HINT, please!

Sources: variousImage: https://pics.craiyon.com/2024-09-16/fvE4Btv2SuqE5Y18WTwXXQ.webp

Use the link below! It's LIVE!
https://www.guystewartworld.space/
THE biggest advantage is that all the places I write and have written are linked here. Eventually, I'll be able to have people order books through my site/Rampant Loon Press (my publisher!) and support a small press!

WAS SUPPOSED TO POST THIS YESTERDAY, 9/6/25!
Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

My quotes below are from something Google calls an “AI Overview” from my query “Families in Space”. While I’ve used them in the past, I was somewhat irritated by a couple of things this overview presented: “For future space settlements, new family structures will be needed to address the unique challenges of microgravity, radiation, and isolation, possibly forming by necessity rather than just biological ties…Behavioral health programs are being developed to support astronauts’ families, addressing issues like…changing family roles…Space settlement families will likely be diverse, forming from biological ties or personal choice, and may take on various forms, including polyamorous or egalitarian structures…In a more metaphorical sense, stars are born in ‘families’ or groups, sharing characteristics and originating from the same place at the same time.”

While I’m sure Google wants to present this as a “totally logical computer speculation” and figures I’ll just accept it as the inevitable Progress Of Humanity, I find it oddly…myopic, blithely setting a “bold new course” into the future as Humanity changes the way families have functioned (admittedly with varying degrees of success) since they have pretty much been the same since the first family units formed half-a-million years ago. So, because of AI, computers, and the boundless wisdom of scientists, all that BS is about to come to an end, thank-technology?

Seems oddly…stupid.

What would alter a family who live on the back of an immense semi-sapient creature floating in the atmosphere of a gas giant, since apparently, “new family structures will be needed to address...unique challenges”? Living on the back of a gigantic blimp would probably present “unique challenges”, eh?

On the other hand, I’m going to assume that Humans will need somewhere to stand, something to breathe, something to eat, and somewhere to breed. None of those basics are unique challenges, are they? Humans have been dealing with them as the biological unit we call families for half-a-million years. The environments on different worlds, OBVIOUSLY will be different. But Humans evolved on the African continent. Of COURSE weather and other factors were different than they were today, in fact, that very change argues that the social groups those original primate families developed it won’t change as radically going so far as to require “new family structures”. But using cold as the environmental challenge, “The coldest place where humans have had a permanent presence is the Russian village of Oymyakon…(which is) The coldest permanently inhabited village…in Siberia, the village of Oymyakon has average winter temperatures of around -58°F. The lowest recorded temperature in this settlement was -89.9°F) in 1933. Despite the extreme cold, Oymyakon has a permanent population of a few hundred residents. The cold is so intense that residents must keep vehicles running constantly so the engines don't freeze. Plumbing is nonexistent due to the permanently frozen ground (permafrost), so most toilets are outhouses.”

Human family structure appears to have remained as it was half-a-million years ago…it seems that Human and/or AI lack faith in the resiliency of the Human family unit.

In the skies of River, a gas giant world I’ve been writing in for several years now (two published stories: “The Baptism of Johnny Ferocious” (Dragons, Knights, and Angels), and “Prince of Blood and Spit” (Perihelion, 2015: https://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2021/06/prince-of-blood-and-spit-perihelion.html) the “nuclear family” is quite healthy. In fact, the backs of these gigantic bags of undulating gas are planted with genetically engineered crops – mostly medicinal, but also designed to concentrate Human-necessary compounds, minerals, and molecules (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK218751/), (https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Vitamins-and-minerals). While gengineering Humans for particular environments may become necessary at some point, and while the propensity of the Human animal appeared to be directed to clumping in family units with variations (Navy Seals, for instance); or Western industrialized civilizations (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8294648/); it’s also clear that while what has been historically defined as a “family unit”, little has changed in Humans over that half-million-year period of time.

Where I take exception, is the assumption that in challenging conditions, the family as we know it will seemingly evaporate to be taken over by something more... “egalitarian” – by which I think those kinds of Human writers mean, “families as I know them are doomed to become whatever people want them to be”…in reading information of SF novels for YA readers, the absurd term I came across is “found family”. It SEEMED to mean that kids can choose whatever kind of family they want willy-nilly and with no thought except “what feels good and meets all of my needs” without giving much thought to the needs of the rest of the people in these “found families”.

It seems to me that the pressure of Humanity moving to alien worlds or living in alien environments and facing interactions with alien peoples – would necessitate the FIRM foundation of the nuclear family unit that evolved here on Earth among the various species of Homo. The idea of a family “forming from biological ties or personal choice, [that] may take on various forms, including polyamorous or egalitarian structures…” is not only silly, but bound to failure. How can an “egalitarian structure” “…a system…that promotes equality and equal access to rights, opportunities, and resources for all its members, regardless of their background or social status. It aims to dismantle hierarchies and power disparities, fostering a sense of shared responsibility, and ensuring everyone is treated with equal fundamental worth and moral status.” make for survival in an inherently hostile environment? How can we colonize and thrive on/in a world deadly to unprotected, naked Human life? If no one’s the boss of anyone and no one can tell anyone else what to do, (which is implied by “equal fundamental worth, status, power, and morality”, and no one’s opinion or experience is more or less valid than anyone else’s…

In the skies of River, there needs to be authority (do NOT read authoritarianism!) and direction (do NOT read dictatorship!) Would Humans – as a species – even exist if hierarchy and disparity of power was forcibly removed (which begs the question, WHO WOULD ENFORCE the disparities? Who would make certain that social status vanished? Who enforces the equal distribution of resources?

No, the pioneers of River, riding on the backs of immense cloudwhales will have families and institutions that have evolved after 500,000 years; NOT family units conceived of over the past 200 years…recognizable. Stable. Not all moms who say, “No, you can’t stick that fork in an electrical outlet! Stop now, or else!” will vanish.

Much to the relief of Human evolution…
Sources: (see embedded in essay above)Image: