I mentioned author Aaron Elkins here about a month ago when he used this site to get in touch with Dad McMains for help with some research for his current book. Mr. Elkins was then kind enough to forward a copy of his Skeleton Dance, which I finished while in Las Vegas. It’s a mystery that revolves around an archaeological hoax and several murders that result from it. Its European setting, intelligent writing, and warmth of characterization (especially Gideon Oliver, the protagonist, and his wife) make it an excellent way to spend several hours. Definitely recommended for mystery fans.

Sheldon Vanauken’s account of his 15 years with his wife is one of the more affecting books I’ve read. In A Severe Mercy, he chronicles their fall deeply into love, the building of that love over several years, their (initially reluctant) acceptance of the Christian faith several years after their marriage, and her eventual death by cancer. Along the way, they befriend C.S. Lewis, who proves instrumental in Sheldon’s acceptance of Christianity, since Lewis also came to the faith as a well-educated skeptic. Several of Lewis’ letters are included in the book and provide a touching glimpse of the friendship these men shared. Altogether a beautiful and touching work for its insights into love, faith, and friendship.

If you have RealAudio, click here to hear an absolutely amazing thing I heard on the radio today. I won’t say anything more about it, except that a passing familiarity with George Gershwin’s work will make it even more enjoyable for you.

As we dealt with the grief and horror of September 11, one theme I heard repeatedly from all sides was this: do what you were going to anyway. If you cower, if you let the terrorists kill the things that make life worth living, they have already won. So, in spite of the fact that Dad McMains wouldn’t be able to make the trip to Las Vegas we had planned around his now-cancelled conference, Ross, Ben, Chris and I all decided to follow through on our long-planned trip. Visit Photos from Vegas for a pictoral summary of our journey.

An interesting article from Time, in which Roger Rosenblatt speculates that the all-too-real pain of September 11 may bring to an end the era of all-pervading ironic detachment.

I tried several times yesterday to write something about the destruction of the World Trade Center and the slaughter of what will doubtless turn out to be thousands of people, but kept giving up after a sentence or two. What can one say in the face of such evil that isn’t dwarfed by the magnitude of the devastation? How does one respond to the news that there are Palestinian people dancing in the street at the news that droves of people who had nothing to do with American foreign policy have been killed? What does one tell the people who are now fatherless and widowed because someone in their family was excited about that new job in the World Trade Center?

Grief that big, horror that huge, doesn’t go down in a single bite. We hear about it, we choke on it, it distends our throats, and still there’s more to swallow. We’re kicked in the stomach repeatedly all day. We want to kill someone. We want to lay down and die ourselves. We want to hold our spouses, our children, and shut the rest of the world out. We want to throw up, to get this poison out of our system, to press our faces to the cold tile next to the toilet and not think, not feel, just survive.

Horror. Horror. Horror.

From Dad McMains, who has seen more of this kind of horror than I ever hope to:

And steadily it becomes more and more horrifyingly real. My officemate’s uncle was killed. Many friends of friends have been lost. And we continue to hear more stories of courage and cowardice from ground zero. This from my friend Glenn Gonzalez who lives in New Jersey:

You can find out where to give blood here.

When I was but a lad of 14 at summer church camp, one of our speakers was arguing for the existence of God, based on the state of the universe around us. “Look at all of this!” he said, indicating the trees, the fauna, and the people that surrounded him. “How could all of this have come to be by chance? Do you know how complex the human body is? One faulty gene, and our bodies wouldn’t work. And look at the planets! If the earth had been just a bit closer to or a bit farther from the sun, life would be burned out of existence or frozen. If gravity were just a fraction greater or weaker, the solar system wouldn’t hold together. If nuclear forces were different, the sun wouldn’t work. Life hangs by the tiniest of threads, and only exists because God painstakingly set everything up exactly the way it had to be for all of this to work!”

“That,” I thought to myself, “is a pretty lame argument. If there is a big control panel from which the universe’s physical laws can be set, they have to be set to something or another. And though even a slightly different setting wouldn’t result in the universe as we know it, it would result in some kind of universe, and some kind of life. By rolling the dice of Creation, it might be phenomenally unlikely that we would come up with what we see around us, but it’s unavoidable that we come up with something, and this version of the universe is no more unlikely than any other.” I left that camp at the end of the week with the smug self-satisfaction only achievable by 14 year olds who think they know more than anyone else.

Recently I’ve been reading Steven Levy’s Artificial Life, a fine survey of the field from its origins to the current state of the discipline. One of the interesting personalities Levy touches on is Chris Langton, who catalyzed the development of the field as a recognized scientific discipline. As part of his work, he created a huge number of “virtual universes” — systems within a computer that had their own laws that governed them and entities that inhabited them. These entities were just little bits of software, but sometimes behaved in startling and lifelike ways, growing, changing, and reproducing themselves.

As Langton’s experience with his artificial entities increased, he began to notice that some of his virtual universes were much better able to sustain his entities than others were. Where the rules of a universe kept information from moving around readily, his entities weren’t able to exhibit lifelike behavior — or indeed any behavior at all. (Remember, these universes were built inside a computer, so they consisted entirely of information.) It was analogous to taking a frog and freezing it solid, which quickly ends its lifelike behavior. When the rules allowed information to move too rapidly, the entities quickly broke down into chaotic, unordered behavior, just as a frog again stops displaying lifelike behavior if you put it in a blender.

But between these two extremes, Langton found a fairly narrow range in which his entities could move, develop, reproduce, and otherwise behave in a lifelike way. Only by carefully balancing the laws in his virtual universe between static and dynamic behaviors could he make it a hospitable place for life.

As I read that, I suddenly thought of the speaker at our summer camp long ago, and recognized that though the settings on the cosmic control panel might indeed fall anywhere, the range in which the universe could support life might well be a good deal smaller than I’d realized. If the real world and these virtual worlds of Langton mirror each other in that way (and work in the field seems to indicate that they probably do), then maybe that summer camp had something to teach an uppity 14 year old after all.

Kathy picked up The Science Fiction Century for me from the bargain bin of our local used book store. I wasn’t expecting much, considering that there’s usually a reason those books have found their way into the get-rid-of-them-fast section, but was very pleasantly surprised.

Hartwell spans Science Fiction’s entire history, starting with Wells and Kipling(!). I was surprised, as a long time enthusiast, to find several stories in the book that I had never come across, including a few that were evidently translated into English just for this volume. Hartwell seems to know his subject thoroughly, and it’s a treat not only to read these gems, but to see them in his explanatory settings. Altogether a worthwhile read, either solely for pleasure or to learn more about the genre.