Learning to Thread

January 3, 2022| cometary| 0 Comment | 5:33 pm

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A screen grab from a twitter posting: text is within blog post.

For my New Year’s Day new learning, I worked out how to create a thread (properly) in Twitter, in order to post my very first awards eligibility thread.

I know, I know, none of these are going to win any awards, though one has already been nominated (by the editor of the anthology) for a majorly major award. Nominations count; just being nominated is a huge, huge thrill.

But not everyone likes to hang out on social media. Facebook is broken. Twitter has deep wells of toxicity, Instagram is all about being pretty (and owned by Facebook), and Tik-Tok is … out of my league.

So in this blog post, I’ll try to recreate the Twitter post. I have two 2021 stories that are Hugos-eligible (the science-fiction ones). What awards do you know about that you’re eligible to nominate for? You might be surprised!

Let’s jump ahead now, and make this Not About Me. It’s readers who nominate for Hugos, and readers don’t care if the author is famous, made a bucket of money, or only managed to sell one story. Sure, the list of finalists is short, but consider–what did you read last year? What moved you? If you’re a 2021 or 2022 WorldCon member, you can nominate the things you liked. You can nominate up to five things in EVERY category. They don’t have to be the movies, stories, novels, or magazines that your friends liked, that your social-media leaders went on and on about. You can voice your own preferences.

So, pitch made. GO forth, write reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, nominate all your favorites for awards, and then enjoy all the new (and not-so-new) stories out there in 2022.

Here, then, is my Twitter thread. Do ya love or hate my cartoony profile pic? I’ll only put it in for the opening tweet; otherwise, it gets annoying in blog format.

The official awards-eligibility thread. In 2021, I had three short stories published:

1. a #scifi story about stolen land

2. a light #scifi #romance featuring a favorite 20th-century artist

3. an upbeat piece of literary fiction grown from #autism, #depression, and #optimism.

2/7 “Heart’s Delight,” anthologized in Fault Zone: Reverse, edited by @LaurelAnneHill and published by Sand Hill Review Press. An intelligent ecosystem repels those whose ancestors took the land unjustly, returning custody to its true caretakers. #SFF

3/7 For the record, I live on Tamien Nation Territory, bordering Popeloutchum (Amah Mutsun) land, connected to the territory of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. These people are all, right now, working to protect this land, e.g.: http://amahmutsun.org/history

4/7 “Parrish Blue,” published by Water Dragon Publishing (Dragon Gems short fiction). In an elite restaurant on a climate-ravaged Earth, under the glow of a recreated artwork, a young woman rediscovers a dream of life immersed in wonder—and finds one who shares that dream. #SFF

5/7 I’m dropping in an image of the piece of art these two fall in love under (Romance, by Maxfield Parrish). Just because.

A fairy-tale castle stands on a hill, with peaks risin gin the distance, and people in old-time fantasy clothes gazing on the scene from a collonade — (Note: on Twitter, alt-text includes artist attribution: this is a photograph of a public-domain artwork. The photograph came from Plum Leaves at Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoskins/5841870848).

6/7 “Reunion,” anthologized in Fault Zone: Reverse, edited by @LaurelAnneHill and published by Sand Hill Review Press. Two young people, separated in childhood by separate traumatic events, renew a friendship forged through shared suffering.

8/7 These are all findable via my linktree.

Glowy orange sunset clouds float over a cluster of treetops at lower left. With text linktr.ee @Vanessa_MacLarenWray | Linktree. Character-drive literary speculative fiction. Science-y stuff. Cats. Ponies.

7/7 If this story resonates for you, consider further research at https://autisticadvocacy.org or connect with mental-health resources in your community. Also, remember to reconnect with friends in 2022.

It’s surprising hard to recreate a Twitter posting in a blog! Go follow me on Twitter, OK?

There May Be Spoilers: A Review of Building Baby Brother, by Steven RadeckiThere May Be Spoilers: A Review of Building Baby Brother, by Steven Radecki

Oh, my, let’s unpack this one. First off, this book is a good choice if you’re shopping for a scifi story for someone who maybe isn’t all that into science fiction but loves kids and understands the parenting life, or anyone who’s given any real thought to what artificial intelligence might be like and what it would mean for ordinary people.

Building Baby Brother is a story made for Silicon Valley parents—wherever they may live. It has such a multi-layered dimensionality, you’ll be peering at your neighbors, wondering if that’s them, if this story isn’t fiction, but thinly-veiled fact.

The story begins with a typical divorced father managing a well-ordered shared upbringing relationship for the child he and his ex are raising together…but separately. The ex has her issues, Dad has his failings, but they both care about Josh, a wonderful kid whose one ask is “when can I have a baby brother?”

Parents want to provide for their kids. Don’t they? And this dad, once he stops to think about it, realizes he has the capability to provide his son with some of what he needs: a companion to play with, a buddy to share secrets with, a fellow child to grow up with. Gavin is just what Josh needs. What Dad needs Josh to experience.

Wait….back up a minute there. Secrets? Before Dad knows it, Gavin’s doing things he hadn’t designed him for, because Josh taught him new things, ways to access information Dad didn’t think Baby Brother would need. But what were the kids to do when they needed to make just a few improvements to their favorite video game? What would a Silicon Valley kid do? Of course, they get online and add the mods they want. And Gavin’s got the inside track on modifying software, being mostly software himself.

Gavin is an AI. And also a child. And what does a child do best?

Learn. And what do you do for a child that needs to learn, who is a good person, one who’s your other child’s best friend?

You help. Of course. Because that’s what a parent does.

What follows shouldn’t be a spoiler, unless you failed to read the blurb on the book.

EXTREMELY MILD SPOILER ALERT.

Stop here if need be. Grab tissues if you’re ok with indirect spoilers.

What happens when a child has learned all they can from their parents?

You mean when they’re all grown up?

<nods>

Oh. Right. That.

END OF SPOILER-ADJACENT MATERIAL

Building Baby Brother isn’t fear-the-AI, instead it drives straight to that point all parents say they’re working towards, but that tears them apart, all the same, when it finally happens. If you’re a crier, be sure you have tissues handy. If you’re a parent, be glad you have all those years ahead.

Or do you? It’s you, isn’t it, with the workshop and the spare parts and the know-how? Think, first. OK?

No, it's not a compass. — No, it’s not a compass.

Sometimes, you need a compass. Sometimes, you need a more specialized instruction set.

This section of Cometary Tales follows the path of adventure, in search of the secrets and mysteries out there in the natural world.

I’ll begin by co-opting the blog page for an in-depth retelling of how I took two cameras down the Colorado River on an inflatable raft and managed not to drop either of them in the river.

Not to say my loyal retainers didn’t suffer. The TS-4 served its duty of riding lens-first into rapids, secure only in the assurance that between a wrist strap, a neck lanyard, and a sweet orange floaty it was not likely to end up in Lake Mead. The non-rugged ZS-7 struggled mightily with the ubiquitous sand, but soldiered on, recovering temporarily from a sand-jam to deliver a final sequence of aerial shots when the TS-4 exhausted its last milliamp-hour on the way out of the canyon.

To follow along on this journey, track Secrets of the Grand Canyon.

(Updated January 2021.)

Machine DesignMachine Design

I draw for you the art of Leonardo:

A man whose legs are feathered airfoils

of that smooth asymmetric camber

which folds the wind under an eagle’s wings.

A man poised in a cage of struts and sailcloth,

curved like the feathers on the haft of an arrow,

an apparatus geared to spin, to lift him free.

The paintings were for money.

This poem first appeared in Hadrosaur Tales #19, 2004. You can still find copies of the original Hadrosaur Tales online at clarkesworldbooks. Meanwhile, Hadrosaur Productions now publishes a new magazine, Tales of the Talisman, as well as novels, short fiction collections, and audio recordings. Look them up at www.hadrosaur.com

Learning to Thread

You might also like to read:

There May Be Spoilers: A Review of Building Baby Brother, by Steven RadeckiThere May Be Spoilers: A Review of Building Baby Brother, by Steven Radecki

Secrets & AdventuresSecrets & Adventures

Machine DesignMachine Design