Post Nuclear Marin County (1966)

Ads in the back of “Dr Bloodmoney” (1967)

VULCAN’S HAMMER Philip K. Dick
The artificial intelligence called Vulcan 3 ruled the human race, more than a machine, less than a god. It had lifted mankind out of the dark pre-machine ages. It had ended war, unemployment and poverty . . . but it had not ended the most corrosive of fears, the fear of Vulcan 3 itself.
At first those who feared it were dismissed as crackpots and religious fanatics. Then the world learnt what terror meant as the deadly, gleaming messengers of death appeared, soaring through the air to strike down friends and foes of Vulcan 3 alike. Who ruled them? What was the strange force that wielded Vulcan’s Hammer?
50p

ICE AND IRON Wilson Tucker
At the foot of the advancing glacier which heralds a new ice age, Fisher Highsmith struggles with an impossible task. Why – how – have various objects – bricks, stones, a ray gun, dead fish and the charred corpses of sixteen Stone-age men apparently fallen out of the sky?
The next two bodies give the clue. One is still alive – and he’s angry. The other is a woman. She’s been mauled, bludgeoned, boiled and eaten to death – but what’s left bears witness to humanity’s incredible future___

HEROVIT’S WORLD Barry N. Malzberg
Herovit’s World – a place of terror where alien forces struggle for power.
Kirk Poland is a man of action – a man from another dimension. It was he who created Mack Miller, survey-leader and superman, hero of the space opera.
la another guise, though, Poland is the writer, Jonathan Herovit. Who wants Herovit’s world? Certainly not Poland. And maybe not even Herovit himself.
In the ruins of a man’s mind, the battle for supremacy has begun.
‘This is Kirk Poland. Get this straight from the outset: I AM TAKING OVER .. .’

CHRONICULES D. G. Compton
A mysterious explosion, a haunting indefinable smell. . .
Sitting quietly by a Cornish creek, reading his favourite comic book, Roses Varco hears the bang, catches a trace of the odour – and understands nothing.
Which is hardly surprising, since Roses has just witnessed the death of a time-traveller lost in a limbo between worlds. Had he known the truth, it would have terrified him – for that traveller was himself.

THE SEEDLING STARS James Blish
Pantropy; total genetic engineering, capable of modifying the human body to the requirements of the alien world.
Ganymede – an icy waste and the site of the first colony.
Teltura – a jungle world peopled by a stubborn breed of tree-dwellers.
Hydrot – where human personality lives on in the form of
minute, underwater organisms.
New races of Adapted Men swarm throughout the galaxy.

A CASE OF CONSCIENCE James Blish
A trap for humanity?
The four-man team of scientists investigating Lithia are about to make their report,
Two are in favour of exploiting the planet’s enormous mineral wealth – if necessary enslaving its gentle, industrious inhabitants in the process. One recommends non-interference.
The fourth is Father Ruiz-Sanchez, biologist and Jesuit priest. For him, Lithia is Paradise – a Paradise created by the Devil himself. . .

Brave New World – Part 2: Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology – invisibly all around you soon!

The announcement last week by a major global health regulatory body that there are serious concerns about the proliferation of nanotechnology is another thoroughly modern problem. We are not talking about a sci-fi scenario like Drexler’s nano-goo proliferating in an uncontrolled manner and destroying equipment and eating people, but rather about the unusual surface effects of tiny particles.

For example you can buy titanium dioxide-based sun-block which is not opaque white like it used to be. It is clear and this is because the particles that are mixed into the gunk are 100th of the size of the particles in the old white stuff. The particles have become smaller than the wavelength of visible light, but they are still able to block the ultraviolet.

When a bit of anything gets very small, its ratio of surface area to volume increases exponentially. Atomic scale physical effects mostly occur on the surface of materials, and they include attraction, friction and repulsion. At this tiny scale these forces are strong enough to tear open cells and break cellular material like DNA.

There is a lot of concern about this among responsible scientists. Early uses of nanometer size particles for composites to increase strength have been extremely promising, effectively creating a new class of engineering materials. UV filters with clear titanium dioxide are twice as effective as the old and there are many other nano-cosmetic developments in the pipeline. But what happens to these particles when they are released into the environment, and the composites and cosmetics degrade in waste depots? Nobody knows. And what happens when they get into the bloodstream through skin absorption, remembering these particles are often small enough to slip through the cells and cross the blood brain barrier? It’s likely they will be carcinogenic!

Products incorporating nanotechnology generated $32 billion in 2005, and pundits predict that within a few years it will become a $2.6 trillion global market. These new materials are rapidly transforming materials science as we know it. They are extremely useful, and you can be sure they are being energetically researched by the chemical industry to create profitable products.

As for the side effects, there has been very little research about the effects of nanotechnology on people and the environment. Most nanotechnology will probably be harmless, and increased research and funding could create guidelines for utilising the technology safely, but rapid technological advances with unknown safety risks could badly damage public opinion, as in GM foods. It is a case where, as usual, industry develops a product without being obligated to explore it’s full range of effects.

Further reading:

http://www.industrysearch.com.au/Features/Safety_concerns

http://www.industry.gov.au/assets/documents/itrinternet/Summary_of_Surveys

http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/nanotechnology/default.htm

A fragment of STRIPLAND

A proposed Sci-Fi Novella

This is not meant to be an allegory – just a playful extrapolation of trends. Any reference to people or organisations who may be offended by being referred to is definitely not intended.

Temperatures began rising more noticeably at the end of the first decade C21.

A trend began to emerge. Many huge populated areas of the world become very unstable politically as water levels rise.

A tightening of military control as populations rise, and perhaps some of the apocalyptic climate change events happen – a massive diaspora starts across the Indian Ocean, from the North and West to the West Australia coast.

Boats full of refugees, sometimes escorted by gunboats of their country of origin were heading towards West Australia from East Africa and from the whole low land area across India Bangladesh and Burma, Indonesia New Guinea.

(Skip the invasion, the war, the peace, the constitution changes, the granting of 100 year leases and the building of a new nation).

Another country formed on the island continent’s West coast, Stripland, a long back border porous to the holy and ancient survivors of the first Australians. Sharia Lite works for the desert people.

Fitzroy Crossing has become a twin city: Fitzroy Border Crossing E and W. Table dancing, dog-racing, two-up, casinos, drugs and mods, immersive DNA mods, illegal sex work. A concrete border wall that runs up into the dry hills separates the two nations. with a narrow, heavily guarded (on both sides) gate. There is a huge, wide, two-way special automated portcullis border trap for mega-trucks. And a smelly culvert for the often dry Fitzroy River. There is a row of UN Info Terminals on the Australian side: The screens are dark and the dim hallway smells of tobacco caught in the resin of the varnish on the cheap yellow plywood.

Back on the coast the Indian Ocean is bright green in the hazy afternoon. Lazy surf rolls off the point, long breaks, some reefs. Brave wetsuited surfers sit way out waiting for the 7^th – or 77^th wave. Rich expat Australians live in a strip of huge white ferro-cement houses on the hills behind the beach, big glass windows staring out to sea, in closed communities with cruise missile strike capability. Sometimes seen standing on the bleached concrete balconies, their security system repels bullets and beams. Many nights brightly dressed black haired women flirt on the balconies under colored lanterns with handsome, grey-bearded executives, and their young protégées. They commute by taking the shuttle to the Mobil Truck Stop DMZ, then the Rocket-bus to the Eastern States of Australia.

This new region, think of it as Southern West Asia, but commonly called Stripland, has a population of several million people, evacuees from Africa, Middle East, India, Bangladesh, PNG, Polynesia, Indonesia, South China.

(How they live together in a weird ‘post holocaust’ group of settlements, the technological wealth they quickly built and about the history and government of Stripland is beyond this brief precis.)

Mostly it is a narrow coastal strip. Technology in use includes solar air-conditioning, solar desalination, solar heating, solar electricity. The airwaves are crackling with open source copies of everything ever made. This place is not a democracy. There are no garbage men. But you might get shot for making or not cleaning up a mess. At The Mobil Truck Stop DMZ Kalgoorlie there is a nuclear strike ( light) proofed UN Bunker with diplomatic suites in a mini Level 7 scenario. It still provides petrol on either side of the border. Very expensive petrol, but an almost reliable supply.

The centre of Perth (now called Strip City) is flattened to rubble for a diameter of 400 m. On the curiously regular rim stand broken buildings with blank windows, some half melted by the effect of the beam.

Desperate vagabonds live in these buildings – sometimes a white face with black dots for eyes will be seen in a broken window on the 20^th floor, and the militia are supposed to shoot to maim or kill.

(The mass evacuation of Australian citizens by the military, and the dreadful refugee camps near Port Pirie and Port Lincoln for displaced Aus citizens from what was WA, are not covered in this outline.)

There is a huge trade between Stripland and SE Asia, China, and India. Australia still maintains control over great areas through the Commonwealth’s Deed of Settlement and leases these to mining companies and other bodies. Stripland has its own Chinese speaking stock exchange. But uses Australian Currency.

Politically Stripland is controlled by a ruthless citizens group of militia who’s dabbling in corruption is tempered by their Sharia responsibilities just enough to make the whole mix work. And it’s officially known as Sharia Lite.

There are some quite notable Zone projects underway. A massive Aerospace project located offshore of NW cape has attracted big money from Australia and the rest of the world, the inundation having destroyed most launch sites apart from Balkonur. Trading is strong between Australia and Stripland. Border controls rely on microchipping, and a huge underground trade in identity theft flourishes.

There are a few networks of people living on boats rafted together, still there from the exodus from Africa, with long roads of 5 meter logs of recycled laced with heavy steel cable, and a perimeter of Australian made wave gigalitre sized wave suppression power generating caissons.

Some rafts are not connected to the land but float offshore, surrounded by floating cassions, tethered to the seabed. Multi-headed wind generators and solar electricity supply energy, efficient recycling creates mats of flexible surface gardens, with fruit trees and high yield grains. The distinctive stacks of solar desalination units can be seen dotted across the scape.

Elsewhere in Stripland, illicit (under UN regulations) coal mining and exporting supplies a desperate world with coal. Massive loaders built during the Australian years are still maintained and used extensively. In Australia coal is mined secretively in the back areas of what used to be known as NSW and Queensland ,and shipped by mega-truck to ports on Stripland coast, providing some much needed overseas credit to the Commonwealth.

The great flat mega-truck grooves straight across the ancient desert can be seen from the orbiting prison ships.

Jim the mega-truck pilot (doing life for a pathetically bungled microchip swap) looked out through the cracked viewport at the tracks so far away. “Gaarn.” He said. It had been his life.

This is the background of the story of Majhid from Stripland, and Sophia from Broken Hill – a love of sex and drugs and DNA mods that began at the MTS DMZ, sparkled in Stripland, and tragically ended in Fitzroy Border Crossing West with their double suicide.

 

Excerpt from ‘Journey Beyond Tomorrow by Robert Sheckley (1966)

An ‘Eccles’ moment 

The golden age of speculative fiction. This book is still very readable. This excerpt could have been written last year:

Page 88.
Furthermore, Harris said there is very little time.  You have seen how quickly everything is breaking down, Jones.  The law is a farce; punishment as lost any meaning and there are no rewards to offer; religion preaches its antiquated message to people walking a tightrope between apathy and insanity; philosophy offers the doctrines that only other philosophers can understand; psychology struggles to define behaviour according to standards that were dead 50 years ago; economics gives us the principle of an endless expansion which is deemed it necessary to keep up with a maniacally increasing birth rate; the physical sciences shows how to keep up this expansion until every square foot is covered with a groaning human and my own field of politics is offers nothing better than ways of temporarily juggling these gigantic forces — juggling until everything breaks down or blows up.