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SPJ 2020Q2 Issue As 2020 ♦ 2 Barnicle King Benedetti Martín Rodríguez Clarke Dibble Mina Imago Fire Shultz Khan Turner www.sciphijournal.org ♦ [email protected] 1 CONTENTS CREW Co-editors: Ádám Gerencsér 3 Editorial Mariano Martín Rodríguez Communications: Gina Adela Ding 4 « Cube» Kaolin Imago Fire Webmaster: Ismael Osorio Martín 5 « The Real Story» Contact: [email protected] Jonathan Turner Twitter: @sciphijournal 9 « Faith in the Future, or, Does Religion Have a Place in Science Fiction?» Jim Clarke 15 « Ragnarok» Alessandro Benedetti 17 « Red Card» Madeline Barnicle 19 « Free Will, or the Sriendi Vastar Method» E. E. King 22 « For a Truly Multicultural Science Fiction: Do Translations Matter?» Mariano Martín Rodríguez 26 « The Meaning of His Own Words» Andy Dibble 29 « How to Check if Your Peacekeeper-2000 Is Loaded» David F. Shultz 32 « Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bug?» Mina 37 « Last Entry » Ahmed A. Khan 2 Editorial their library armchairs. Co-editor Ádám marvelled time and again at the manner in which the world that to him seemed to be closing in, was at the same time opening up for his little daughter, barely three years old, who is at the age when the mere shadow of a cloud on the balcony is ripe with speculative Lectori salutem. possibilities. As our European home base is emerging from the In a way, science fiction (and sci-phi in particular) is a clutches of the pandemic (or at least its first wave), genre that at its core sets out to inspire in readers that we hope that our readers, authors and their loved same inclination towards subliminal wonder, as if ones have weathered the storm in good health and seeing a new phenomenon through the eyes of a high spirits. child. May we never lose our ability to revel in this We resume our standard format this quarter, but playfulness of the human mind! given the doom and gloom of recent months, we try Speculatively yours, to add a cheerful touch this time, with quite a few stories that strike a light-hearted cord. These are the co-editors punctuated by three essays, each courting controversy # in their own particular way; be it the relationship between faith and science fiction, the dearth of SFF ps: While most of the SPJ crew leads rather old- translations from languages other than English, or a school, analogue lives, we are following the advice of timely reflection on pandemics as depicted in the sci- a couple of kind readers to re-animate the Journal’s phi canon. Twitter account from its long cryogenic slumber. If you wish to support our authors by sharing (re- During the spring, we had received a record number tweeting?) their work, you may do so by following of submissions – a welcome development, which we, @sciphijournal (which we are told is not a hashtag, however, ascribe to the unfortunate circumstances of but an account handle, apparently). the global lockdown. Solitude is good for literature, it seems. ~ The rules of social distancing also meant that the crew availed themselves of the opportunity to spend more time with their families, while doing their day jobs (and reviewing submitted stories) confined to 3 Cube Kaolin Imago Fire Slowly they found each other; some madnesses were compatible, some were not. Extremes of violence were removed, the rest were studied from afar. And slowly, ever-more-slowly, they evolved. Technology was remembered, reinvented, re-imagined. Language was a game, never left to one set of rules for too long. They learned to walk through walls, and were never seen again except as ghosts--though it was rumoured that they stepped out as sooth-sayers to sundry wheres and whens. The planet continued to change No street led to just one other; no window faced and be changed by them--in time, it too began to another; no entrance was for just one house. Sewer fade, escaping both space and time. flowed through boudoir with an elegance that defied reason--but that was art in the hands of masters. ~ Cube, as it was prosaically called, was the result of studied generations, clones and imitators, working towards a harmonious cacophony of architecture. Out of the void of other beings, mankind creates its own others--and Cube was the ultimate inhuman thing, an entire planet manufactured to break down the mind and recreate it from environs that knew no boundary. The greatest living-art project of any time, Cube was populated slowly despite the near-fanaticism it inspired. Volunteers were seeded across the planet to build their own "worlds". Were allowed nothing that could contact Off-cube, simply given the means to support themselves, to provide for the world they inhabited. Were left to fall into madness and either come out the other side or die. Only then were more seeded: hundreds, thousands at a time, all segregated from each other but provided for. And again, madness ran its course. 4 The Real Story Jonathan Turner "When does Skynet come online?" Lisa asked. "August 4, 1997," said Allen, who can be relied on to know stuff like that. "Why is there no Star Trek in Star Trek?" I asked. "And the movie came out in . " That was the question that started it all. "1984." It wasn't meant to be profound. We were killing time "So only thirteen years. And it's not like the movie between--or instead of--classes, at the Science Fiction was obscure." Society. Forgive me if I don't name the university. "Ergo," I said, "in the future shown in the movie, the You'll understand later. movie itself either doesn't exist or isn't widely known. "Because it'd make the show really boring?" said Which means that it's not our future." Allen. "It'd be all, 'Mr. Spock, have the computer "I'm good with that," said Lisa. figure out which episode we're in and tell us how we fix this.'" And that should have been that. This conversation should have gone the way of the one where Allen and "Allen" isn't his real name, by the way. None of the I worked out what happens if you cast an invisibility names I'm going to use are real, not even "Jonathan spell on a campfire. (Invisible photons, in case you're Turner". You'll also notice that I'm not giving you wondering.) That is, we would have spread it around a much in the way of dates. bit, referenced the punch lines periodically, and "Sure," I said. "That's the real reason. But what's the otherwise gotten on with our lives. in-universe reason? I mean, Trek is supposed to be This one recurred every so often, though, just because the future, right? The actual future of our actual of the calendar. Some date would go by, and someone world. Which includes a TV series named Star Trek." (usually Allen again) would point out that according "It's not the actual world," Lisa objected--Lisa tends to book/movie/TV show X that was the date when to get detail-oriented. "No Eugenics Wars." event Y happened. And we'd agree that they really We had a lot of conversations like this in the SFS. We should have checked the film archives, or whatever, called it "The Room That Time Forgot." It was a so they wouldn't have been surprised. musty little windowless space in the basement of Wedderburn Hall with a mangy collection of fourth- hand furniture and a carpet that looked like it had been dipped in goat bile. We loved it. "No, but think about it," said Sean. "It's not just Trek, it's everything. Like, in The Terminator future, why doesn't somebody on the Skynet project say something like, 'Hey, guys? Remember that movie? Should we maybe not do this?'" 5 Eventually we all graduated. I went into quantum "You're a mean one, Mister Grinch." Sean made a sad physics. Lisa and Allen got married; she became a face at the game board. "I don't like this future." high-powered government lawyer, Allen an AI The conversation switched to pure game-speak for a researcher. Sean was the one who travelled furthest, as while while we blew up each other's spaceships. It a globe-trotting fast-track executive for an popped up again when we broke for pizza, though. international e-commerce company. But we never lost touch. It's one of those groups where it doesn't matter "We could still get The Martian," Sean said hopefully. how long you've been away--you walk into the room, "Only if we increase Martian air pressure enough to and it's like you never left.. blow over a lander," Allen objected. So it's maybe not surprising that "the Trek Paradox" "If your name is Mark Watney, do not leave the kept cropping up. I remember one conversation in lander!" said Lisa. particular. Sean had flown in from Japan, and we had "NASA should have a checklist on their job gotten together for a weekend of board games and applications," I said. "Is your name (a) Mark Watney, catching up. (b) David Bowman . ." "So it looks like Invasion: Earthlight isn't going to "(c) Ellen Ripley," added Lisa, our resident Alien happen," Allen said, moving a tiny spaceship. (Yes, expert (she also does Godzilla). that's a made-up title. I told you, I'm being coy about details.) "What they ought to do is take all their actual astronauts and write disaster stories about them, so "Umm .
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