Babel, eggs and the Great Beyond

[sergebroom]

Found. – and greatly enjoyed – in Asimov’s February 2008 issue…

Michael Swanwick’s From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled… is about a man on the run across an alien planet, accompanied by a local who doesn’t trust him. The tale is all told from the point of view of the man’s environmental suit, whose AI he'd based on the personality of his lover, as a way to figure out when to stop trusting the real woman. Yes, the story talks about the economics of trust.

”Your every public action involved an exchange of trust, yes? And every trust that was honored heightened the prestige of the queen-mothers and hence the amount of trust they embodied for Babel itself."

In Mary Rosenblum’s The Egg Man, Zipkana drives from Mexico on a humanitarian mission across the border to impoverished America. There he dispenses eggs to destitute villagers, eggs with medicinal virtues and hatched by his genetically engineered chickens. Then one day he finds a boy who looks like the woman he once loved and who had disappeared years ago in that country.

The Great Beyond marks the end of Allen Steele’s novel Galaxy Blues. After Jules Truffaut, high on hemp-laced food, seriously offended the religious – and frog-like - leader of an alien federation, the only to make amends is for the crew of the good ship Pride of Cucamunga to drop a probe on a world about to be eaten by a really big black hole that wandered into its neighborhood. Jules has to take the probe down, with only a few minutes to spare before the planetary dining starts. Along for the ride is Rain, his sweetheart, who volunteered against Jules’s strenuous objections.

And that was it. We never had an argument because she refused to argue in the first place. Besides, she’d already received Ted’s blessing, so my opinion didn’t really count. That’s the trouble with women: they’re smarter than men, and therefore enjoy an unfair advantage. And the hell of it is that they know it, too.

We are also treated by a confrontation between Jules and the alien Pope that would have made Jim proud. Not Jules’s brother Jim, but Jim Kirk.

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I read the whole story and never thought that 'Jules Truffaut' was an hommage to Truffaut's Jules et Jim. I am dim, and should receive catre cent coups.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

or even quatre cent coups...

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Nah... I barely ever mentionned Jules's brother in my earlier comments. The novel itself does have Jules explain that his parents were big fans of their moviemaking namesake thus the names.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Eek. I forgot that. And I read the whole thing.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

In that case... Shame on you. Go sit in the dunce corner.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

*sitting in dunce corner*

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I feel magnanimous. You can leave the dunce corner now.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Gratias ago, Magister Sergius.

[tania-c.livejournal.com]

You two are amusing as all get out. Heh.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

"Be a clown, be a clown, all the world loves a clown..."

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

"Make them laugh, make them laugh..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW02c5UNGl0