SF from the past

As some of you know, “Guaranteed Delivery” was posted to Splinter Universe in September. It’s a story about leadership, and fame, among other things, and generated a comment from od_mind, over in the Splinterverse discussion group, in which he comments that the story reminds him of Walter Jon Williams’ Drake Maijstral novels, which also deal with leadership, and fame.

First, if you haven’t read the Drake Maijstral series, you should do so — most especially you should do so if you’re a fan of Alexei Panshin’s Anthony Villiers’ novels. Walter’s books are just newly available as ebooks from Amazon and BN.

Second, the notion of a society that runs on fame and ratings and an aristocracy that is more or less always on camera. . .isn’t original with Walter, either. (This isn’t a complaint; it’s an observation. It’s not at all uncommon for writers to riff off of each other’s ideas, or for authors to be caught by the same phenomenon, and to write a story about whatever it is. The stories will be different, even very different. It’s only part of what makes the writing gig so much fun.)

Anyhow. Back in the late sixties and early 70s, when I was stuffing my head full of every bit of fiction I could put my eyes on, I read a whole run of older SF stories about what we would now call Reality TV. A young woman — usually it was a young woman — was followed constantly by a camera, her life projected for millions to watch.

Some of the stories questioned the ethics of the show’s producers introducing “plot devices” in order to shore up sagging ratings when life got too placid. Other stories wanted to talk about what happened to a star when she got old, (and of course ugly) and had to be replaced by a younger (prettier) girl, in order for the show to hold audience interest.

Then, of course, there was Isaac Asimov, who posited “dreamies” — movies made by recording the thoughts and sensations of coherent dreamers, which were then mass produced for public consumption.

Moving up in time, now we actually have Reality TV, and Facebook, and Twitter and the rest of the social media, which encourages people to live publicly.

It’s interesting when science fiction is almost right.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

He was overheard to say he was lookin’ for Bill Gray

Haircut today; no purple stripes. I still have some purple from the last time.

Also had to call the insurance company that covered us when I worked at the day-job, to let them know that the claim they denied from June of 2010(!) was from a doctor I’ve never seen, and they should straighten out their records.

In the course of that conversation, it came out that I was still listed as an active member of the plan, though Steve was not.

Which meant that I had to call HR at the late, unlamented day-job, and tell them that they needed to remove me from the pool.

Honestly, folks, do I gotta do everything myself?

In other news, the editorial pass through Necessity’s Child is done. The crowd roared! And the author muttered under her breath, ’bout dern time.

For those playing along at home, the score is:

63,134/100,000 words OR 63% complete

For bonus points, and my thanks — I heard a Jackson Browne song on the radio today, and it was not a Jackson Browne song that I believe I’ve ever heard before. It’s lyrics have to do with paying a debt from a bad bet, and also being two men inside — one looking for love, which the other wants to hide.

Anybody got a clue? A title? A pointer?

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.