Melancholy Elephants, a Hugo Award winner from 1983, is the kind of story you get when a talented craftsmen, after some genuine contemplation on a topic, has come up with a unique perspective on an issue, discovered something worth thinking about. For the libertarian, it has the added attraction of advocating freedom of artistic expression, as well as a frank depiction of government corruption. Though Spider Robinson’s short work fizzles at the end, it’s engaging and thought-provoking and ultimately worth your time.
Despite the mildly disappointing ending, I cannot find fault with the beginning. Even the title is exactly what a title should be: odd enough to be intriguing while encapsulating what the story is about, but this becomes obvious only afterwards. It gives away nothing of the tale at the outset.
The short story format affords an author little time to grab his reader’s attention; Spider Robinson does it in the first paragraph. The main character, Dorothy Martin, has such a bizarre reaction to a situation she is subjected to that any impulse to put the story down evaporates, rather like what a startle does to the impulse to yawn.
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A few notable things I ran across recently:
- Will Thomas of The Atlas Society (formerly known as The Objectivist Center) argues that transhumanism is compatible with Objectivism.
- Kylie Sturgess, in her Curiouser and Curiouser column for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, interviewed Scott Sigler. I hadn’t heard of him before, but apparently he’s known as a podcaster and now also as an author of techno-thrillers.
Sigler describes skeptics as people
who were spreading the other side of the information instead of misinformation. They are out actively encouraging people to think for themselves, and what’s been interesting is that they’re not necessarily telling people “this is bunk.” They are encouraging people to think critically about things and learn how to address things when you run into them.
He goes on to mention how, among other things, evolution is being challenged in America. But there’s a flipside to long-accepted, fairly well-established science being attacked in knee-jerk fashion by those faith-based types leery of science in general and of science that challenges their religious beliefs in particular. Sometimes science can become corrupted in politically-charged fields, and scientists lose their objectivity. I’m reminded of an old post I wrote about scientific skepticism in relation to global warming alarmism. I riffed off of Clarke’s First Law of Prediction and Asimov’s Corollary.
But to get back to Scott Sigler, has anyone read any of his work? If so, what do you think? Do you recommend it?
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