Still, the news gets more Dangerous Vision-y. It’s a struggle to keep the story I’m working on surreal/slapstick enough. What would Mack Sennett do? Or Luis Buñuel? Does it need a sliced-open eyeball or a pie in the face? Hmm . . . How about both?
RUNDOWN by John Morressy
A bit of wacky fun, a caricature of apocalyptic news. Good for a few giggles, but in the light of the way the world has been in the last few years—when you often find the word “surreal” in straight news reports—not very dangerous. Or am I just getting jaded in my old age?
INTERMEZZO 4: ELEMENTAL by D.M. Rowels
A quick splash of blood-spattered astronomical surrealism. The cosmic should never make you forget about spilled body fluids.
THE WEIGHT OF A FEATHER (THE WEIGHT OF A HEART) by Cory Doctorow
Reads like a tribute to Harlan. The title is Ellisonian, and references Egyptian mythology even though it isn’t brought up in the story, about the effects of technology and a pet robot on a couple’s relationship. Some heavy emotions are exposed. Was probably more dangerous a couple of decades ago, these days we all have to deal with what Philip K. Dick called “artificial constructs masquerading as human” all the time, and mostly they’re annoying.
I remember reading Doctorow’s first story in Science Fiction Age way back in the day. I wrote to editor Scott Edelman about it. I was right. He’s gone places.
THE MALIBU FAULT by Jonathan Fast
This one really is dangerous. A New York writer living the good life writing scripts in Hollywood faces a manifestation of his liberal guilt. Harlan could relate. You hear about the void between the haves and the have nots, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. The rich get richer—you never heard about billionaires when I was a kid, where did all this money come from?—and the homeless, excuse me, unhoused, are everywhere.
Is this why Trump won? What will happen when the people who voted for him realize they’ve been screwed? And more cities are in the peculiar situation where only the wealthy can live there and the people who cook, clean, and keep the good life coming have to commute from a dystopia slapped together, on the cheap, next door. One of these days, something’s gonna give . . .
THE SIZE OF THE PROBLEM by Howard Fast (Jonathan’s dad)
Another bit of flash fiction. A lot of super-short things in this book -- is there a reason? This one’s a swift kick in the frontal lobes about sanity, dreams and the nature of reality that may be dangerous if you think too much about it—which it demands.
Once more we’re in life, the universe, and everything. I don’t see many people contemplating the Great, Big Cosmic What-ever-ya-callit these days, maybe they’re all too busy dealing with the flaming chunks that are raining on us. But reality is dangerous. Especially is you’re wrong about it.
And I think we’re about to see a lot of folks going through that soon . . .
Danger! Danger!
INTERMEZZO 5: FIRST CONTACT by D.M. Rowels
Ah yes, one of the classic science fiction themes turned inside out and put in a domestic setting, in a bathroom. I suppose aliens are going to have to go to the bathroom. The cosmic mixes with body fluids again. What is a dangerous vision, but the aspirations of sci-fi colliding with yucky, dirty, smelly realism?
Can we ever achieve a workable utopia? If we give up, does it just get more dystopian? What will the next news broadcast reveal?
And there are more stories to go!
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