Here’s something for you to ponder on: What do you say when something commonplace isn’t something you take for granted or even something you’ve experienced? Assuming neither of us have got amnesia or any other mental complaint, I’ve noticed that lately I’ve tended to remark, ‘That sounds pretty alien to me.’

Hello everyone

For me, a lot of the time this can apply to the most mundane thing described as something I don’t do or can’t indulge in. That really does make me a stranger in a strange land. Mostly because I say it about so many things. This extends beyond my more limited diabetic diet. I mean I’ve never been in an aeroplane, driven a car, can’t remember my last holiday or even used any of the current mobile phones as the last one of those I had timed out from lack of use.



Let’s not even discuss my unsociableness that would give even hermits pause for thought. Unsocial not antisocial or I wouldn’t be communicating to so many of you reading here. Mind you, being good at communication is part of the job and I’m supposed to be rather good at it, even though I don’t take it home with me. After all, where would I get the time to write so much otherwise? Conversely, for all I know you could all be an artificial intelligence masquerading as various people. I just make the assumption that someone organic is reading these missives. That is the case, isn’t it? Perhaps I’m pretty alien to you, too, although I appear to have a low carbon footprint. After all, with the things I described above that I don’t do or indulge, I must look either eccentric or alien to you as well. Let’s just hope one of us isn’t paranoid or we’d be in real trouble.

It has some advantages to think like this for any SF writer. After all, if you can see the commonplace as unusual then it gives your writing a different light as well and not take anything for granted, even in a future environment. If you’re wondering how I get around describing and using planes, cars and sundry in my stories, it’s all down to research and imagination. How many SF writers have been in space or have time travelled? Same technique. You always have a fresh perspective. It’s a handy skill.

In many respects, we all have our own limitations, most of us live within our own confined microcosms but I doubt they feel the rest of the world is alien to them but think about it. Physically, we only see part of the world about us. Other things we get off television, films and the Internet. We have to accept what we are shown as fact until something else comes along and disproves it. Is it any wonder that the likes of the first ‘Matrix’ film suggesting that we are living in a digital world hooked up to our brains felt a little more plausible than it should simply because of the realisation of the limits to our own perceptions. Mind you, as we’ve yet to see or remember anyone doing a digital fade-out, I think we can at least safely leave that in the realms of Science Fiction for now. Unless, of course, you are an AI but then you wouldn’t have much real life experience neither. Then again, you might be imagining you’re reading this. Can AIs be nonconformist? If they can be then could I be an AI? Nope. Just checking. I’m physical. I can see my reflection.

Then again, if you’re widely travelled, chances are the inverse is possible and you’re probably not here because things like television, films and the Internet are things you’d rarely encounter cos you’ve been to such places. That raises an interesting question of how you’re here in the first place if you fall into that category. The Internet is something most people use for communication so maybe you do have a taste for SF. It doesn’t mean that the two aren’t capable of being interchangeable. Only you can tell what you are. Anything else, like my life style, has to be pretty alien, right?

This doesn’t ignore the fact that everyone lives in pocket universes, mostly of their own making. You might share your life with a spouse, work colleagues and a small scattering of friends but much of what you see of the world is essentially a pocket universe, tailored to how you perceive and the information you let in. You reach out and, hopefully, pay for the extras from other people’s pocket universes to fulfil your own needs, like those holiday things, and have the odd world collision. That is, you meet other people you wouldn’t have met otherwise. You share knowledge and emotion but so much of it is at a distance. The Internet paradoxically is there to make the world smaller yet the only thing we really have in common is a computer and the similar room or monitor we use to be on-line. Let’s not even discuss what photograph you use to represent yourself. Everything else is at a distance. Microcosms rule.

Certainly, the media plays on your interpretation of the world that you think you want about you as advertisers sell you the image they think you want and if you get bored, always has a replacement there in the wings waiting to replace it. How many times have you received something that doesn’t fit into the way you function in this world and gets hidden away in a cupboard and forgotten? Yet anything with SF connotations easily decorates your room because it is who you are. If anything, it’s even more fascinating how the herd instinct with other people takes over and follows the same average image patterns for each generation. Is that an indication that people don’t want to live in their pocket universes alone any longer than they need to or just want to be safe with what they know? Are we nonconformists the oddity and not the norm or are you content to just want to see your bubbles burst? Maybe we are the ones who people want to follow but fear to tread. No wonder we SF fans stand out from the crowd with a little trepidation by other people.

If you go along with my rational, does living in a pocket universe mean that we’re alone or just not always that willing to let something else be in it as well? Obviously, other people must enter it from time to time or the human race would die out but it also presents another interesting problem. If we don’t function as a whole and help each other than the ‘civilised’ end of what we call our reality would fall apart. As we’re still mostly here, I guess that hasn’t quite happened yet but it does indicate some limitations and how fragile microcosms can be. Does our functioning alone and together mean we can be part of our own microcosm and the other universe at the same time? The duality of mankind if you like. Pretty Zen, huh? Then again, it could be pretty alien to all of us.

More importantly, scientists for a long time have been speculating that we live side by side with alternative realities where we’ve made other decisions to the ones we have done. Maybe we are doing that already. Realistically, I tend to find that would make for an incredibly full multiverse unless realities condense when there is no significant difference made by a different decision. From my knowledge of General Semantics and multi-option decisions, I doubt if this would be particularly linear neither but that is beside the point. However, if the only difference between our current reality and another is based on a decision we make then what is powering it? The energy and matter not the decision. Is it possible that by making a particular decision that what makes us step into this alternative reality and we are all changing our reality about us all the time. It doesn’t explain what happens to the reality we left behind but presumably we all move off in different ways so the old one is often left deserted.

What is worth thinking about is how much you share your pocket universe with others. To some extent, your pocket universe is in a series of layers. Some aspects you readily share with others and others where you definitely have the ‘No Entrance’ sign up. Then again, you might also be thinking this sounds pretty alien to me. But you’re an SF fan so maybe you don’t.

In many respects, as Science Fiction fans we’re used to seeing things as pretty alien, often because that’s how people see our own interest and see us as outsiders. As I’ve pointed out in the past, they might have the odd dabble with SF films, but it’s only a passing interest and not an outright passion. Even after all these decades, we’re still pretty much the outsiders although our numbers have grown over the years, even if they’ve divided into a variety of specialisations.

Whether or not you people reading this are real, pod people or artificial intelligence has still be verified, especially with the latter. I’m presuming that there is something or someone looking in on all this digital information. However, you would not confuse this with what we know of the real world even if this digital world is a safety blanket for many people. Sometimes it can be very dangerous out there and probably why so many like to go on-line continually than just for a brief daily visit. In many respects, having a lot of things about the current world being pretty alien to me might be my own protection from running with the herd and getting trampled in the process.

The question now is are you agreeing or disagreeing with this attitude? Are you looking around at the world a little differently now? Have you come back to this editorial for a little refresher once you start feeling that way? If you think pretty alien is a neat looking extra-terrestrial then maybe it hasn’t worked. If the world has turned alien, then welcome to my world. You’ve just switched microcosms. Keeping people at a distance isn’t a requisite, just helps for a clearer picture. It’s a microcosm eat microcosm world after all.

Thank you, take care, good night and a happy new year.

Geoff Willmetts
editor: SFCrowsnest.co.uk

P.S. For those wondering what actor Keir Dullea is doing these days, check out: http://www.i-cocoon.com/index.php#/teaser

P.P.S. There is no truth in the rumour that along with the discovery of water on Europa that there was a monolith with a ratio of 1:2:3 standing guard. Well, unless they’ve missed it.

P.P.P.S. Now here’s an interesting story. A spare old television set I have for recording upstairs wasn’t picking up all the digital channels through its Freeview box after the final transmitter changes we had in the UK. In fact, it was receiving the local channel news in the next county and just getting worse. Where I live, I discovered a couple years back that I’m between three transmitters and a matter of a couple inches changes between them.

Went through the logical things like getting one of those modern digital aerial. Putting a connection to the main TV digital aerial shorted both TV’s out before anyone asks so deemed it necessary to get a separate one. Nope! Got a more powerful aerial booster than the one I was using – three transmitters after all. Nope! Re-tuning told me I had over 140 channels but only showed about 20 and most of those were the junk channels – you know the ones that you wouldn’t normally watch.

Finally, the only thing left to check was the Freeview box. Looking at the price of replacement boxes and the high price they’ve gone to, decided that there would have to be an alternative choice first. I had an elderly Freeview box with lousy timing options but gave that one a go. All the channels played. Well, at least that proved the problem was with the Freeview box. Plugged it back in and after some thought, re-set to ‘Factory Settings’ and scrubbed the updates which ends on a re-tuning and guess what, all the channels re-worked.

Granted the aerial and booster probably needed an upgrade and I haven’t lost anything by changing them but to discover something as simple as adjusting the Freeview box to its baseline wasn’t at the top of my list to check.

OK. What can you learn from this? If you have a similar problem, before you change anything, do the last thing first. Try re-setting the ‘Factory Settings’ first on your Freeview box or any other chip orientated hardware you use and see if that provides the remedy.

I suspect and hope some of you folk will verify this for me is that the original BIOS settings are kept as a back-up on the chip and don’t get changed with updates so flipping back can get rid of any changed codes that aren’t working. That being the case, it does make me wonder if that is the solution to try first with any chip technology before calling in technical help. If it is, let me know or spread the word on the SFC Forum for which it works for.

P.P.P.P.S. Here’s something I didn’t know until this week and according to Google expert Dan Russell in New Scientist # 2840 is that when you use the search engine to a particular page and then wonder where to look on the page, to press ‘Ctrl’ and ‘F’ and then enter the info you want to look for. He says a control is being added to Google Chrome but it works on any search engine. Makes you wonder what other commands are often forgotten. I suspect this one is overlooked because we never associate it with the Internet only word processors.

P.P.P.P.P.S. I’m running out of P’s here. Sometime else for you to consider. Any of you folk suffering light deficiency or SAD during the winter months and haven’t gone for a natural light lamp for daily quarter of an hour sessions might want to consider a low voltage daylight white lamp instead. The regular low voltage lamps tend to give off a red tinge. That’s easy to test is you take a photo of, say, a piece of white paper and it develops a red or orange tinge from your light. The one I got this week gives a slightly blue tinge but I expect it’s more a question of my eyes getting used to that. The red tinge is far more likely to make you sleepy whereas the blue tinge will keep you awake and there’s no restriction on time. Will be interested if that helps any of you suffering the SAD effect about now.

A Zen thought:Blind belief can always be beaten by intelligent replies.
I hope.

Anyone interested in reviewing books for me, especially fantasy and military SF, as we have a surfeit of books, and lives in the UK should contact me through gfwillmetts@hotmail.com. I’m always recruiting and details are through a link on the top of the SFC main page and in the SFC Forum. If you’ve on a budget, a book for a review is a good bargain and I can teach the nervous how to do it by seeing what you do when you present a sample. It’s a good deal. We get books in a variety of formats these days so all things are possible to those with the knack for putting words into sentences.

PPS Don’t forget to join on in the new SFCrowsnest Forum. Join up and express your thoughts in leaving typed words that make sentences. I’ve noticed many of you are joining up but the Forum isn’t supposed to be a passive site. Remember the editorial above. I’m not advocating a vow of silence. Are you going to be a lurker or a typer??!! Remember the editorial above, passivity is for sheep not a sentient species. Write something and others will respond. Equally, you could just be a guest and look around but the more the merrier when you have something to say. We haven’t been spammed since inception with this new version now so you should feel safe to come and communicate on anything Science Fiction. I’m dying to see you people fill in the survey polls. They won’t bite y’know and are active when you sign in and you must be dying to find out why I consider Element Lad the most powerful Legionnaire. It’s postponed another month due to my knee hitting the ground after slipping on some ice and can’t get in the attic to check some vital information.

Speaking of the Forum, if you want up-to-date info of book signings and such, have a peak. You don’t have to sign up to have a look as to when these things are happening and I’ve yet to hear of a flash crowd turning up for such things but there’s always the first time. We’re not libel if you do such a thing, just to keep my boss happy.

Don’t forget, I’m always on the lookout for new reviewers as well as articles, interviews and stories and after some recent changes, let’s see if the full details about that appears below. If they don’t then look in the new Forum or on the link line at the top of the main page. For potential book reviewers in the UK, it’s a good way to keep up your reading habit and show you can write. There are detail links scattered over the website and on the forum. If you don’t think you’re up to scratch, you’ll discover why I’m the dutch uncle.

Another real Zen thought but this time for potential writers: If you can express an opinion independently of others and aren’t likely to bend to the masses then you might show potential as a writer.

Zen for those who are scared by all the instructions below: Many of the instructions are things you should be doing automatically if you’re developing your writing skills. If you do them already then focus on the ones that you don’t get right. They are there to help you as much as me to get the best writing from you. If you think you’re 80% there then I’ll help you get the final 20%. Trust me, I’m an editor and I can get things right.