Debian Orphanage - Chapter 2

Leigh, I've read both chapters and I must admit that I find them utterly impenetrable. Are you trying to re-invent the English language? This is not my genre and I maybe haven't a clue what I'm talking about - but I just didn't understand what was going on or why. Maybe others will disagree!

I'm not very good at reading sci-fi (e.g. love Iain Banks but just can't be doing with Iain M. Banks). But even with this in mind, I have to agree with tcook on this one. The sentences often seemed like strings of words arbitrarily put together. Sometimes I could get at the meaning of a sentence with a second reading, but this just interrupted the flow of the piece. Perhaps it's because my brain's just not wired for sci-fi, though. Sorry!

It's got nothing at all to do with something being science fiction or not. Science fiction isn't a style, it's a genre. Style is something different. Hardboiled is a style, detective is a genre. The two often go together, but they don't have to. It's an experiment I imagine. Or the product of an experiment. If not the author has a bit of an approximate approach to meaning and sense in their work. Cheers, Mark

I have read far too much science fiction & from time to time I even write a little. Good sci fi can - maybe even should - be challenging. What I get from this piece is the idea of a completely different culture with a completely different mind-set & a very distinctive way of thinking & speaking. I cannot truthfully say I enjoyed reading it, but maybe if it were tweaked a little it would suddenly go from difficult to brilliant. Certainly I thing that it may be easier to attain "genius" from the cutting edge than from a more pedestrian style such as my own.

Writing lots of stream of consciousness stuff that someone will actually choose to read is pretty difficult. That's not really the problem here, though. It doesn't read like a stream of consciousness. It reads like fairly conventionally structured prose peppered with sentences that are linguistically meaningless.

The consciousness is linguistically meaningless. yours may be ...

'The consciousness is linguistically meaningless. Do you think hard when you write? And what are the rules of stream of consciousness? surely its all in raw expression?' So what's supposed to be in it for the reader? If the consciousness is linguistically meaningless doesn't that suggest that prose is a poor choice of medium for expressing it? Where's the appeal in 'raw expression' without rules? You've got to know the rules before you can break them in any kind of controlled way. I'm a firm believer in attempting to get a grasp of the basics before pumping your narrative up on modernist steroids. Two characters in a room, sitting at a table. Dialogue. Go easy on the adverbs. Tell us a story. Once you can do *that*, then maybe it's time to go all Joycean, you crazy polymath, you.

Leigh, I think that rokkitnite know whatof he speaks. My least favourite book on earth is Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School. It breaks every rule going and ends up as a total mess - and she was meant to know what she was doing. I'm not against experimental writing - in fact I look out for it, buy it, read it and am frequently disappointed but so hugely pleased when it works. For you though I think it's back to basics and then go crazy later!

Leigh, I made a few stylisitc and grammatical changes.(see below) I hope they are a help. When dealing with sci-fi, you have to be careful that the readers follows you and understands, or you lose their interest quickly. I hope you find a way to "get us all to Titan." Vaya Con Dios. J.X.M ChapterTwo _______________________________ The lab resumed shutting its doors, placing the corpse in a Test Sheet and then followed their usual procedures. The living half of the team beating against the miserable, from scientific defeat, parried and swayed to their domicile settings. Callum was sobbing in despair from the loss, more so than the rest. Arch, coming from the failure angle, and Sinclair feeling nothing but lack of sleep. The night rested with them. “It is not the loss of a team member that makes me take this journey home, using this emotional setting, Sinclair. It is the simplicity of failure.” “Failure is merely a learning tool. From failure only mistakes can be learned and honed into a manageable success.” Sinclair crossed his arms and watched the final embers of Callum’s essence exit the streets horizon. “Science should fall into the category of trial and error, heroes emerging seconds after a mistake and not even realising their victory.” Arch stared at the moon. “This reminds me of my loss…so we will leave it be under the guise of sleep. Until tomorrow Sinclair.” And he walked away. “Until tomorrow.” Sinclair replied. _______________________________ Arch held the memory of his son closer than most... Alex had been the embodiment of, a promise of perfection, made by the engineers. Arch had believed them. From test tube to walking male, Alex propelled himself from child like states through the machinations of adulthood. He cross examined every known constellation and proved himself the best at what actually was. He is a clone of Arch, with very few female cells for good measure. Alex scaled the ranks and died. Arch found him in the early hours of the morning near the boat house on the bay, swinging rhythmically from side to side. His tongue was swollen and aloof, his eyes grand and glaring. “These genes I passed down to you,” Arch spoke to him hanging there “ Do they reflect how I feel about my self?” An ambulance. In stasis. A Man who... ...Puts his work over his child. _______________________________ Sinclair’s apartment ached with the lack of female touch, a style of living he wished not to take on. It wasn’t the waste that love and lust can be, but rather that his career was his one true love. Discovery was a route well walked. With every step he took, post arrival, a peppering of bubbles travelled up the cylinder tubes that traversed the walls around the apartment. This was caused by the Sonoluminescent Array, a cheap and effective means of lighting the abode. High frequency microphones, strategically placed around the home, pick up the sounds of breathing, footsteps and ambient noise. It then transfers the sound into the cylinder tubes, packed with well water, aerated with a noble gas like helium, argon, or xenon. The bubbles implode, after a short space of time, and send out shards of light to the surrounding space. There is no waste or fuss, just the economic utilization of sound. Sinclair had placed the settings at “static level,” so that the level of footprint sound, perhaps a smashed dish, would be replicated at different levels within the array itself. Most families leave it at one level for a sombre approach. The bubbles imploded downwards towards a decorous hush, as Sinclair’s head hit the pillow. He is fast asleep. Slumber held for him, the almost and the nothings. There were no dreams breaking through the barrier inside of Sinclair’s sheets. And the bubbles, within the tubes, flustered forth rays of discrete sunshine as the Communication Relay went off. The entire wall flashed and stuttered a static outward, until Sinclair awoke. “Accept!” he shouted, eyes encrusted with the morn, to the overhead the communications modem. It was Callum. Her face was pretty much beetroot, due to the contrast on the relay being set too high. It is a common fault, made because of her excess in overdoing the Face Application settings. “Something very strange has occurred.” “Oh? At this time in the morning? Is it a result from your statistics?” “No, its Amstrad. He’s alive.” Sinclair rushed down all the winding wet streets to get back to the lab. There were no transport facilities, due to a predestined strike. The streets seemed as jam packed with traffic as ever. He knocked back a Refreshment Pill. This not only cleaned his teeth and freshened his breath, but lined the stomach with gentle proteins and bacteria. It also sent a small shot of adrenalin to his brain, to erase the sleep from his mind. The lab lights were at full pelt. It seemed like the entire building was alive and pulsing with in excitement. He assumed the Dante Cord admission, across his teeth, and ran to the Med Séance. The room was empty. The machine was off. Beside the machine, on the table, lay a full body bag. Sinclair’s inspected it. It was Amstrad. That made no sense. He ran down the corridor, passing the Questioning Area, and found Arch and Callum. They sat behind a steel desk, interrogating a little girl, pigtailed and perky at this time in the morning. The women nearest her, assuming to be her mother, was weeping softly into a Soothing Vial. “What the hell in going on??!?!” Sinclair barked. “When the body dies you would think that the soul goes to hell wouldn’t you? ” the little girl replied. “Its Amstrad.” Callum quipped “For some reason he did not die.” Sinclair gaped at the possibilities, Arch felt it too. Amstrad’s Wife removed the Vial from her lips and began screaming. Callum sat at the Minute Meeting Recording Unit. It was a handy tool. The quiet of the lab meant that she could easily focus on the job at hand. From the proceeding document, she would gain vital insights and statistics regarding the past events. In this way, she could proscribe enough project variables to sustain a workable answer for the team. The Basic Principle of the events has lead to this accumulation of data. In Old English, Sawol, Sawel.In Gothic, Saiwala. In German, Seula, Sela. In Saxon, Seola. In Franconian, Sela. In Old Norse, Sala. And now, Essence. The displacement, and following removal of the essence from the form, results in the ceasing to exist of the form at large. The essence itself, under enormous strain to exist, does not attach itself to any animate or inanimate object, but to its closest genetic counterpart. In Amstrad’s case, it is his daughter. You may say, why not the father or the mother or the brother? Maybe even the cousin or the uncle? There’s the catch. All of Amstrad’s known relatives are deceased. I certainly don’t want to get detailed or caught up in the genetic possibilities of this phenomenom. There is a gap in the research. There is something that we are missing. It is the gap between genetic values. How much is it worth? How important is it? My point is that beyond the skin and the flesh of the human being, the keeper of the essence, why doesn’t the essence throw itself back into the soil, Into the basic compositions of the periodic table? Why does it not go back to its original format? The essence cannot be measured, but it fits our form. The essence cannot be seen outside of the flesh mesh that is the form. The essence cannot be felt, but we know it is there. It runs through all organisms, regardless of speech capabilities and knowledge. Does the essence have enough self awareness, without a form, to convey all messages and actions? We understand that it has a pathway, that is the form, and relations to the form, but we do not know from there. Only Amstrads daughter’s death would prove that point. Of course we cannot test the validity of this claim but though calculations: BY using the equation FE#/SF~ = E1 – F0, We can come close enough to a workable projected answer. Further interrogation of Amstrad, now in his daughters frame, elicited a few answers, but left many gaps in our knowledge of the condition. Some of our observations are that: 1. He could not remember the space between leaving his body and waking up in his daughters bed. 2. Where has the daughter gone? 3. How long will this phase last? 4. His feelings on all matters. He appears to be numb, unfeeling, cannot seem to connect fully with his daughters frame. 5. The psychological effect on both their consciousnesses. 6. Can this process be reversed? 7. Intelligence and knowledge, of the previous incarnation, seems to be known. Are these things carried over or are they known facts of always? When the Process Examination was Complete, we deduced that “I think if we were looking for an answer to our problems, this is it.” Sinclair sat at the Med-Séance lab table and sipped a four score caffeine medley. “To leave here and find the nearest living atmosphere for this generation via essence severance.” He finalised the sip. “I don’t know what I fear most about this, the unknown or the damned waste of time in a debate.” Arch pronounced. “We had better get a start on this then.” Callum pressed the emitter against the ink jet. The minutes for the meeting were almost ready. Sinclair coldly points out that this is the answer, laid out before them. It represents a journey to Titan, an opportunity for the entire human race to be reborn and start anew. The report is written. The team decided that the next task would be to create, by whatever means that are necessary, a way to get the human race to Titan.

Leigh, Sorry. I spent a hour making changes, then forgot to copy and paste them when making my comments. Sorry. I will try again when I get a chance. How many times have we all made this dumb, and time costly, mistake? J.X.M

So, I guess what people are saying is, you need to learn/understand the rules before you can break them? That sounds like good advice.