My new anthology of science fiction and fantasy short stories, Prompted Visions, is now available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book, price £1.99 to buy (see below). A paperback version will be available on Amazon soon.
A man finds his comfortable and colourful hometown becomes un familiar.
A group of spaceship captains meet for a bit of a do.
An aurora follower watches a spectacle that changes his life.
These are themes of three of the 42 short stories. That number is a complete accident (like the universe, perhaps). The title means what it says in that each story was written to a prompt provided by my writing group at the time. These can be words, phrases, even whole sentences or objects. The resulting piece is then read out and the other members make comments (positive, of course). That is why these are short, short stories varying from under 500 words to just over a thousand, as any longer would take up to much time. The stories cover all sorts of genres of SF & F and various styles. Each story has a short introduction. The book is ideal for dipping into when you have a few minutes to spare. If you buy and read a copy please write a review.
There will be more news soon and special offers!
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This week there is only one thing you can reasonably expect me to comment on. Yes, it’s that Channel 4 programme, Gender Wars. The title itself is contentious. People get hurt in wars. The last thing anybody who is trans or non-binary or gender questioning wants is for people to be hurt. It is the minorities that get hurt and at 0.5% of the population (according to the 2021 census) trans people are a pretty tiny minority. Nevertheless there are people who seek to deny transmen and transwomen their right to a normal life because they insist that transwomen cannot be women and must be treated as men. The programme set up Kathleen Stock as the proponent of this anti-trans viewpoint with backing from Julie Bindel and a few other unnamed women. A variety of transmen, including Stephen Whittle, transwomen and non-binary persons gave their view. A debate at the Cambridge University Union was central where Prof Stock was invited to propose the motion that there is a right to cause offence.
I thought Stock was a very weak spokesperson. She lost her job at Sussex University for repeatedly saying transwomen were not women and caused a danger to women in women-only spaces such as loos because they were really men. However, she had no evidence to back up her assertion other than falling back on genetics. Women have an XX chromosome, transwomen have XY and that is the end of it. She repeated a statement she put in a blog saying something like “it is as certain that transwomen are men as that grass is green and water is wet”. For a philosopher I thought that was a decidedly weak argument. Philosophers can debate forever what is meant by “green” and “wet”. What kind of green? Yellowy-green or bluey-green? Is everyone’s perception of green the same? What about those with red-green colour-blindness? What does green mean to them? As for wet – is it only water that wets? Not all surfaces can be wetted. Addition of a detergent makes water wetter, and so on.
Stock’s argument became even more suspect when she revealed that when she came out as a lesbian she started to wear more masculine clothes and cut her hair in a masculine style. In fact a glimpse of her in a ladies loo might make you wonder if she indeed was a man. She said that coming out was a great relief but she still feels wholly a woman. She seemed to have no concept of what it meant to come out as trans or non-binary. I am sure there are some men and women who would doubt that lesbians are complete women if they refuse the attentions of a man and do not make babies in the traditional way.
The reason why Stock and Bindel do not want transwomen in women-only areas such as loos and refuges is because they maybe are violent male sex-offenders. They did not provide any evidence suggesting that a transwoman has ever attacked a woman in a loo or a refuge. Here the programme diverted into irrelevance by focussing on the Sarah Everard murder. There is undoubtedly far too much male violence but it is not transwomen or non-binary people who are the perpetrators. Indeed transwomen themselves experience a disproportionate amount of male violence. Tackling the minority of men who are mysogynists and violent to women is one of the great problems of today.
Stock insisted she meant transwomen no harm but gave no suggestions of what the consequences of the law following her wishes would be. Transwomen denied refuge and unable to access female loos would themselves be more likely targets for abuse.
In answer, the various trans and non-binary people mostly said they understood that some people did not understand what being trans or non-binary meant or the long and difficult journey people took to come out and live their lives. They emphasised that even if the Scottish model of self-identification was passed it would not mean men turning into women over night on a whim. They said they just wanted to live their own lives and support women and gay and lesbian people in achieving full equality.
The programme left most if not all the questions unanswered but gave a worryingly large amount of time to someone who has no argument, no understanding and no concept of the discomfort she is causing.
To answer the genetic argument. The presence of a Y chromosome in an embryo does (usually) trigger the formation of penis and testicles, and the baby (usually) grows up to be a man. There are intersex conditions (about 1 in 500 births) with either genetic or congenital hormone causes where the sex of a newborn is indeterminate. I don’t know what condition Caster Semenya was born with but she was brought up as a girl and considers herself a woman. Her condition gave her a masculine skeletal structure and muscle distribution, so she can run fast. The point is that every individual has 23 pairs of chromosomes. Only a few genes on the X and Y chromosomes trigger the development of sexual characteristics. The vast majority of genes are responsible for making us individuals and in particular are responsible for the development of the brain, the most complex organ in the known universe, apparently. Development of the connectome in the brain (the connections between all the neurones) also depends on experience and even the microbiome of our guts. With all that going on do we really want to be defined solely by whether we have testicles or ovaries, a penis or a vagina?
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This week’s topic for writing group was “canary”. It could mean the little yellow bird, the islands or even Norwich City FC. I went for the cliché, the canary in the coal mine. I was surprised to learn that it was only in 1896 that J S Haldane suggested the use of birds to warn of carbon monoxide build-up after a disaster in a Welsh coal mine killed dozens of miners. It was 1911 before their presence in coal mines became compulsory. They were used (along with pit ponies) in mines until the 1980s. Anyway, here is my somewhat sentimental take on the subject, Whitedamp!
Whitedamp!
Only the small yellow light of the safety lamp illuminated the darkness. Since he had first come down the mine, months ago, Owen had been scared of his lamp going out. It hadn’t happened yet. He was alone. He only met the grown men in the team at the beginning and end of shift when they travelled in the cage up and down the shaft. Owen’s job was to open and close the ventilation doors when the ponies came hauling the coal-loaded tubs along the rails. He longed to grow up, to become big and strong and join the men at the coal face. Perhaps in a year he would be strong enough to start loading the tubs.
Alone. Well, not quite. He had one companion, one he kept close and one he was more attached to than he could have thought possible. A canary. The little yellow bird occupied a small cage during the shift. During the quiet times, when no tubs were approaching, Owen talked to the small bird and received answering cheeps and chirps that hinted at a conversation. They meant nothing but Owen felt reassured.
It was getting towards the end of the shift. Owen was looking forward to getting back to ground level though night would have already fallen. He would release the canary into its larger cage where it could exercise its wings and he could have a bath and eat and sleep.
He was thinking of the bowl of cawl Mam would set in front of him when there came a low rumble. It was not the rattle of a tub approaching. This was deeper, longer-lasting, ominous.
Owen froze, listening. The mine was silent. Gone was the incessant, habitual grumble of fans and the distant crash of pickaxes on the coal face. Something else was missing, the song of the canary. Owen raised the little cage and held the safety lamp close to it. The lamp seemed brighter, whiter than usual.
Owen’s mouth dropped open. The canary was not on its little perch. It was lying prone at the bottom of the cage. He had been told what to do if this happened.
“Whitedamp!” he cried and ran along the level, repeating his call. He’d run a hundred yards before he met the miners emerging from their coalfaces.
“What is it, boy?” Mr Howell, the foreman said.
“My canary. It’s fallen off its perch, and I heard a noise.”
“Which direction?”
“The downcast. The flow of air has stopped.”
Mr Howell turned to face the growing crowd of miners pressed together in the narrow tunnel.
“What Owen tells us suggests we cannot evacuate by our normal route. The canary has given us a warning of increased carbon monoxide in the air. We need to move now, and head for the upcast. Move men.”
The miners turned and walked at a fast pace along the tunnel. Owen with them. He knew each man was as worried as he was about the effects of the gas. Tasteless, odourless and invisible, the whitedamp was deadly. Men would fall unconscious, unaware that they were being poisoned. Canaries though were many times more sensitive to the gas than men. Owen’s comatose bird had given them warning. Now as he marched, Owen hoped they could get out before the bird died.
It was a walk of a mile before they reached the ventilation shaft and the emergency ladder to the surface. The men started to climb, one after another, hands to the rungs beneath the feet of the man above.
“Go on lad, you next,” Mr Howell said.
Owen hooked the canary cage and his lamp to his belt and started to climb. It was long and hard, his arms aching, and his heart pounding. The cage swung and bashed against his thigh, but there was no frightened tweet from the canary.
At last, twilight appeared above his head and he emerged from the shaft. A man reached down and hauled him on to level ground.
Owen took no notice of what was happening around him, he didn’t even thank the man. Instead, he lifted the cage up and peered in. The canary was still on the floor of the cage. Owen opened the door and lifted out the little bird. It felt warm but perhaps that was just the feathers. With the bird lying on his hand, he fanned air over it with the other.
“Come on. Don’t die. Please,” Owen whispered.
A wing tip twitched. A leg jerked. The beak opened. A feeble chirp emerged.
“Yes!” Owen cried and held the bird up. It extended its wings and flew from his hand, circled and landed on his shoulder, tweeting and cheeping merrily.
“Here, lad, I think your bird deserves this.” A man held out a slice of apple. Owen took it and held it to the canary which pecked at it between chirps.
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ellifont 