Why do we need Ukrainian Science Fiction and Fantasy?

Originally published as a blog for the “Embroidered Worlds” anthology of Ukrainian Fantastic fiction Kickstarter campaign, September 2023.

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Why do we need Ukrainian stories in English? Why do Ukrainian writers need their works translated? What makes Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy unique? Why should those of us outside Ukraine be interested?

Perhaps the first question is why we need stories at all.

Telling stories about ghouls or vampires or werewolves and other things that go supernaturally bump in the night gives us authority over the dark and the terrors that lurk there. Telling stories about what could happen gives us some understanding and control over an unknowable future. Whether these stories are fantasy or science fiction, they grant us power over fear, uncertainty, and anxiety, and they celebrate that part of us that is fearless and in charge of our fate. 

So stories are necessary, yes. But why Ukrainian stories? Why is it important that English-language readers (and others around the world!) have access to the tales and narratives Ukrainians tell about themselves?

To start with, Ukraine, as a friend observed to me, is an interesting place. This is in the sense, perhaps, of the apocryphal Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Ukraine does have an interesting history in many tragic ways. A multitude of horribly interesting things have happened to it and macabrely interesting things have happened to its people. Many interesting events are happening right now that lay the groundwork for what the whole world will look like in the coming decades. 

Because the origins of Ukraine’s cultural and political capital Kyiv are lost in the shades of unrecorded time, they are fought over by competing storytellers. To this day, historians speculate and argue and create their own legends about who and when and why. And Kyiv was for a large part of its story a post-apocalyptic city: It lay in ruins, its spectacular architecture burnt and rotting, its population ravaged and scattered — a perfect breeding ground for ghosts and angst.

Ukraine was a place of conflict, in many ways still unresolved, between the Pagan and the Christian. Priests of the new god ensured that the old, some might say more interesting, beliefs were not written down. Prince Volodymyr, the Red Sun of legend, had the wooden idol of Perun flogged and dragged into the Dnipro to drown, and one imagines that his ghost still wanders the hills of the city along with his divine siblings, Dazhbog, Stribog, and Simargl, who still haunt the wooded ravines and forests of the country — as do many other fantastic and terrible beings.

The country saw, through the centuries, hordes and armies and emperors and commissars — not so different and no more understandable than demons and invading space invaders. Ukraine saw fire and sword wielded by abominable aliens; destruction visited over terrified generations and without warning. The Ukrainian people created their own interesting champions through these times. Stories of its protectors: Volodymyr of legend again and other bogatyry, were told for consolation. Legends of the Kozaks were examples of the spirit of independence of the people and their need for liberty that permeates their souls to this day.

And now, the revenants of past ogres pillage the country in a horrific repeat of the past and a chilling presentment of the future, or, more optimistically, the hope of a final victory and peace in their defeat.

Then there was the less horrific, but still traumatic, voyage from the village to the city — the interesting rapid transformation from the rural to the high-tech, from the medieval to the future of computers and rockets. As much as Ukrainians are a product of their past, they are equally focused on their future, on what could or might or should be.

With all this interesting heritage, Ukrainian writers have made great use of it to create fantastic visions. Poltava homeboy Mykola Hohol (the appropriated Nikolai Gogol) first had success with his Ukrainian stories, many with fantastical themes. He famously wrote in “Viy” that in the Kyiv markets, all the old women are witches. The Ukrainian feminist Lesia Ukrainka wrote her “Forest Song,” a play in verse, about the forest nymph Mavka who falls in love with a human. She also wrote a critical survey of world Utopian literature for Ukrainian readers. The historian, folklorist and writer Mykola Kostomarov wrote a story, “Bestial Riot” anticipating Orwell’s Animal Farm by almost three decades. In the 1920s, the writer (and sometime politician) Volodymyr Vynnychenko wrote his utopian novel The Solar Machine. In later times, writers like the pseudonymous Henry Lion Oldie and husband and wife Maryna and Sergiy Dyachenko had huge popularity with a Russian-language readership.

In the last decade, however, there has been an explosion of Ukrainian and, as importantly, Ukrainian-language fantastic literature by young, sophisticated, multilingual authors — many of them women. They draw very much from the interesting legacy of Ukrainian history and culture.

It’s perhaps hard for us Anglo speakers to understand what it’s like for artists creating in other languages. English is so prevalent in the world that one can, only somewhat facetiously, say that if it doesn’t happen in English it doesn’t happen at all.

So, what do Ukrainian writers think about their work appearing in translation? Is it important to them and why?

Nataliya Dovhopol considers it to be about the voice. One can think about the personal voice; but in the context of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian writers have the power to spread the truth and use their voices to keep the struggle in the minds of the international public. However, it’s not necessary to write about the war in a mode of realism, because SFF gives us so many tools to use. 

Iryna Hrabovska thinks that every author, of course, wants to reach larger audiences. She feels a special keenness towards other languages and to see her work translated into them and compare the perception of others to that of her Ukrainian readers. Though Ukrainian SFF isn’t a priority for foreign literary agents, it is fast developing, and she feels a need to spread this work outside the country. 

Natalia Matolinets believes in the power of authentic voices. She writes a lot about her native city and locations she feels connected to. Her work has been translated into Czech and her readers there write to say that they want to visit Lviv now. For a long time, Ukrainians haven’t had much of a voice and it is now time to speak up. If Ukrainians don’t tell their own stories someone else will, neglecting their perspectives or using stereotypes. Natalia also thinks that the fantasy literatures of different European countries have yet to be discovered by their neighbors, just as much as by English-speaking audiences. Translation, then, is the key for us to understand each other.

Daria Piskozub says that the most important reason for translation is sharing context. Life can be extremely different, or similar, for people across the globe and literature is a wonderful tool to express those distinctions and parallels. The global SFF community has recently become more interested in stories of ethnicity and identity and the voices of people who have previously had no chance to express themselves. This is exactly what Ukrainian SFF has in abundance!

Mykhailo Nazarenko an accomplished literary academic from the University of Kyiv as well as a writer, simply believes that it’s important for every Ukrainian writer to make their culture, both classic and (post)modern, visible for the wider world and SFF is a part of this process.

Svitlana Taratorina says that the war against the Russian invaders is a war for Ukrainian identity and culture. Translations of Ukrainian texts allow the whole world to see the beauty and depth of the Ukrainian soul, to better understand the character of Ukrainians, to better understand what they are fighting for. All texts created by Ukrainians today are influenced by the experience of war in one way or another, even in science fiction and fantasy. These writers want to share this experience with the world because it is the only way the world will be able to understand who it supports and why. Svitlana’s latest novel, “The House of Salt,” expresses her understanding about the occupation of her native Crimea in the language of SFF.

While Nazarenko and Taratorina are represented in Embroidered Worlds, the other writers mentioned above are not — which just goes to show what an important start this anthology is in bringing Ukrainian science fiction and fantasy to the world. There is a lot more where this came from: plenty of material that deserves translation and a bigger audience.

Review of Iaroslav Lebedynsky’s “Les Cosaques” (The Cossacks: A warrior society between liberty and power, Ukraine 1490-1790)

Les Cosaques by Iaroslav Lebedynsky

Review by Michael Burianyk

The Zaporozhian Cossacks and their brethren, the Town (or Urban) Cossacks who ultimately formed the Hetmanate state of the 17^th century, loom large in the history and myth of Ukraine. Like Japanese samurai warriors and American gunslingers, they form an integral part of modern Ukrainian identity. So, it seems strange that an in-depth study of their origins, culture and legacy is lacking in many western languages, particularly in English.

The eminent Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy has written several monographs which discuss certain detailed aspects of the Cossack phenomenon. The historian Philip Longworth and later the military writer Albert Seaton wrote general histories describing all the different Cossack groups and only offered partial attention to the Cossacks of Ukraine. More recently, historian Shane O’Rourke examined the entire Cossack world in a similar way. And, of course, the great Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky devoted almost half of his multi-volume History of Ukraine-Rus – translated into English by the efforts of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies – to the Cossack period. However, his work isn’t readily available to the non-academic and specialist reader. Otherwise, there is no affordable, accessible and general history or discussion devoted to the Ukrainian Cossack experience in English.

Modern French writers seem to have been even less interested in Ukraine than their English-speaking counterparts and have generally hewed to the views of imperial Russian histography. There are more French language books exploring only Russian Cossacks than in English. So, it is quite extraordinary that a work, in French, exists solely devoted to the Cossacks of Ukraine – Iaroslav Lebedynsky’s Les Cosaques: Une société guerrière entre liberté et pouvoirs, Ukraine 1490-1790 (Éditions Errance, Paris, 2004).

Iaroslav Lebedynsky is a French born historian who works at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris. Lebedynsky’s expertise lies in the history of the peoples of the Steppes and the Caucasus as well as Ukraine. He has written many books on those subjects and is academically well placed to have written this book and has done an excellent job in doing so.

Les Cosaques has two main parts. The first describes the history of the two distinct Cossack communities in Ukraine while the second is devoted to their culture and way of life. The book is extensively illustrated with old drawings and engravings, modern artistic renderings, photographs of artifacts and many informative maps.

Even for those somewhat familiar with Ukrainian Cossackdom, Lebedynsky’s text is revelatory. He starts with describing the ancient world of the steppe and the conditions that created several precursors to the Slavic Cossacks. The peoples of the steppe – Iranian and Turkic nomads in particular – in symbiosis, in conflict and collaboration with societies on the borderlands of the western steppe were fundamental to the creation of a Cossack lifestyle. In early modern times, from the 15^th century onward, it was the struggle of the Ukrainian people between the growing empire of Poland and that of the Ottoman Turks with their Crimean Tatar vassals that created a truly Ukrainian Cossackdom. They either formed spontaneous self-defence ‘militias’ (the Urban Cossacks) to protect their towns from Tatar slave-traders or frontier brotherhoods (the Zaporozhians) to create communities both free of Polish domination and to have opportunities to plunder in Turks and Tatars in their turn.

Lebedynsky identifies four major schools of thought on the Cossacks. There is the Polish, the Ukrainian, the imperial Russian and the Russian dominated Soviet view, along with comments on western points of view. He is successful in juggling these opposing interpretations, despite having Ukrainian sympathies. And he does admit it problematic not to have a Cossack-centric view. Despite that, he is effective, in the second part of his book, in dispelling several myths. While he discusses in some detail their organization, weaponry and military tactics he notes that they were not a great cavalry and perhaps more often effectively acted as infantry and were definitely more successful as sailors and marines. The image of mounted cavaliers with several pistols stuck their sashes was more of a romantic embellishment. The iconic warrior-democracy of the Zaporozhians was as often as not an anarchic rabble easily manipulated by powerful men and the egalitarian Hetmanate easily slid into an oligarchic pseudo-monarchy.

Further in part two, he shows the great influence of Cossacks on the growth of Ukrainian arts, culture and myth. Ukrainian Cossackdom was a fundamental part of the development of the Ukrainian people and their culture, responding to the close relationships, influences, collaboration and antagonisms with the Poles, Caucasians, Turks and Tatars. Surprisingly there has been much less influence from Russia, despite the overwhelming growth of Russian colonial and imperial subjugation in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The history of Ukraine as a whole, Lebedynsky shows, is intimately tied with that of its Cossacks. Much of what has happened in the past century, and particularly what is happening now on the Ukrainian battlefields can be better illuminated by this work.

This book will be of interest to anyone with a desire to explore Ukrainian history and, of course, its Cossacks. Despite being almost 20 years old, everyone will benefit greatly from Les Cosaques. It is still in print and only suffers from not being readily available to non-French readers.

A note to publishers: I have an English translation of this work and would be happy to see it published.

Les Cosaques, Iaroslav Lebedynsky, 252 pages, Errance, Paris, 2004.

ISBN-10: 2877722724

ISBN-13: 978-2877722728

Properties of matter for poets

Help!

Those who know something of my activities over the past 6 years or so may know that I’ve written two books devoted to different aspects of geophysics. Now I’m considering another one. This will be different in that it will be describing geophysics applied to another field of, ‘non-scientific’ study. I don’t want to mention that field, so will use the code word [poetics] and its practitioners as [poets]. Below is a draft of a chapter of that proposed work.

What do I need from my friends and acquaintances and anyone else interested in reading this? For those of you who are [poets], does this chapter give you an appreciation for physics, properties of matter and aspects of how they might be measured and data interpreted? For those who already know these things, am I misrepresenting anything, getting anything wrong? Please let me know what you think.

Note that I am taking a deliberate irreverent tone here because I believe that [poets] will be better able to understand and remember the concepts. It may annoy some of you but what the hell.

Also note that the chapter requires diagrams which I haven’t done yet.

Physical concepts for [poets]

This chapter is for non-geophysicists, non-physicists and non-engineers. It’s for those [poetically] inclined students who slept through their school physics classes. All others can safely skip this, or read for their own amusement, disparaging our feeble attempts at trying to simply explain a complex subject.

Soil, rocks, water – any material in fact – have physical properties. They can be solid, hard or soft or fluid, wet or vaporous. They have characteristics we can feel. We can measure the mass and volume of a material and calculate its density. We can, to a greater or lesser degree, pass electrical currents through them. We can hammer something solid, and it will transmit sound and vibrations and maybe even crack if we bang strongly enough. Some matter, depending on its constituent elements, emit characteristic radioactivity. All these properties – whether of specific objects or the substances they might be buried in – are physical. They are described by the physics of those materials.

Physics is only really done on simple systems, or more complex systems that have been greatly simplified. There’s an old physics joke. A dairy farmer decided that he wanted to increase the milk production of his herd. Thinking that science was the way to do it, he found a physics lab that was willing to look into the problem. After granting his life savings the farmer let the physicists alone for a year to solve the production issue. After that year, the excited physicists invited the farmer for a presentation on their results. After seating the farmer, the head of the lab went up to the blackboard (this is an old joke!) and after a few preliminary comments on the problem, drew a circle. “First,” the physicist proclaimed, “we assume a round cow.” Ba dum tss!

While silly, and perhaps not even very funny to a non-physicist, it does point out that, first, physics only works well on simple or simplified problems. Second, why it’s funny to physicists, is that these gross simplifications can work remarkably well. We are well informed that the original farmer *did* increase his production and make huge profits while the poor physicist had to write another grant application to try to keep his lab running. In that vein then, we will try to explain the relevant physics in as simple, and perhaps irreverent, manner as possible with no mathematics – apart from counting – to complicate the concepts.

We’ll look at the composition of matter itself and the properties of electricity, magnetism, electromagnetism, density and gravity, elastic-mechanical behavior and radioactivity and then look at some other important issues pertinent to the measurement of physical data. It should go without saying that the physics of materials underlies geophysics and its use by [poets].

Matter and electricity

There are two main concepts we need to start with and which we will combine here. There is a good reason for doing this, as we’ll explain. The first concept is that all matter – the elements of nature, their resulting molecules and chemicals and then ensuing minerals, plants, animals dead or alive – is ultimately made up of atoms. We’ll return to this in a short while.

The second concept is that the universe has something called electricity, composed of discrete electric charges. They come in only two flavors, vanilla and chocolate, or to be less flippant, positive and negative (+ or -) which are diametrically opposed to each other. These charges are associated with certain particles and have an electric field around them which exert a force on all other charged particles. The fields of ‘like’ charges (negative-negative or positive-positive) repel, that is push away from, each other. The fields of opposite charges (negative-positive) attract, that is pull themselves together.

Getting back to atoms, they consist of positively charged particles called protons, negatively charged particles called electrons and uncharged (neutral) neutrons. Protons and neutrons make up the nucleus – the core – of the atom. Since protons will repel each other, they need the ‘glue’ of the neutrons to keep together. The number of protons in the nucleus determines what element it is. Now think of this nucleus as the ‘sun’ of a solar system. Electrons orbit – they are the ‘planets’ in this analogy – this core. The circling electrons inhabit discrete shells around the nucleus. Each shell has a precise number of electrons which ‘complete’ it. If an atom needs more electrons after one shell is completed, they go into a newer shell further out[1]. To be electrically neutral, each atom potentially has the same number of electrons as protons. As much as it would like to be electrically neutral however, it is the need for complete shells that is more imperative.

As an example, a single proton orbited by one electron is a hydrogen atom, the simplest element possible. Two protons, with two neutrons to keep them together, will have two electrons orbiting. This is the helium atom. Those two electrons inhabit the first shell, completing the helium atom. Since helium is electrically neutral with a complete first shell, it is an inert, or noble – an element that deigns to involve itself in any interactions with other atoms. It is sufficient unto itself.

Each increase in the number of nuclear protons – and the necessary neutron glue – is a different element. More protons mean more negative electrons attracted to orbit it by the positive nuclear charge. But, because the atom really wants to have complete electron shells, they may lose or gain electrons, creating atoms with net charge called ions. Again, because they really – really – want to have complete electron shells, they can share electrons with the atoms of other elements. Or, positive and negative ions of different atoms may cling together – opposites attract, remember. Chemistry and molecules ensue[2].

Let’s look at water, H₂O. Oxygen has two electrons in its first shell, nice and complete and contented. It has six more in the next shell, but it really wants to have eight in that second, outer shell. Hydrogen has only one electron in the first shell. So, two hydrogen atoms will share their single electron with an oxygen atom. Hydrogen thus has another electron to complete its first shell and oxygen has two electrons to complete its second shell. This is called a covalent bond. Covalent bonds are the strongest chemical bonds, the shared electrons providing a tough lock.

Let’s look at salt, NaCl, sodium chloride. Sodium, Na, has two content electrons in its first shell, eight equally content electrons in the next shell but only one in its third, outer shell. Chlorine also has satisfied electrons in its first two shells and seven more in its outer shell. But it wants eight in that shell to be full. Sodium feels better by shedding its lone outer shell electron, leaving it with a net positive charge – a cation – Na⁺ in the vernacular. Chlorine is happy to pick up any free, lonely electron leaving it with a net negative charge – an anion – Cl^– in the jargon. Positive and negative attract, so the sodium cation and chlorine anion will stick together in a relatively weak ionic bond. When you mix salt with water, the heady mix of electricity, strong covalent water bonds, weak ionic salt bonds, means that water has a sea of anions and cations floating around in it. This is more than just an example of applied physics – ahem, I mean chemistry – but important, as we’ll see, in the geophysical methods that involve electric currents and electromagnetic waves (see more below).

One more aspect of matter that will be important to us is that those elements, atoms and molecules that make up everything come in two different types on the macro scale (that is, the scale at which we humans experience them). These are fluids and solids. Solids are generally, well, solid. They’re structured and often stiff like rocks and minerals though they can be broken up into small pieces, like dust and cookie crumbs. Fluids, which can be either liquid or gas, are more amorphous. They flow and ooze like water and oil or diffuse like steam and air. And, of course, as we just alluded to by mentioning water and steam, one can become the other and we can even add ice to this picture – different aspects of the same molecule, gas, liquid and solid.

Now, back to electric charges. Think of two oppositely charged (+ and -, positive and negative) particles constrained from falling into each other. For the sake of argument, you can think of holding one in your right hand and one in your left – do not try this at home. This is called a ‘dipole’ (two opposite poles). As we’ve mentioned, there is an electric field emanating from each charge. Any other charged particle, entering into the dipole field, will be forced to its oppositely charged pole. With a supply of charged particles into this field, the resulting stream is called a current. In this case it’s a direct current (DC). The force field of the dipole is called the electric potential, more colloquially the voltage. If we, again continuing the argument, juggle the two poles between our hands, changing the configuration, the stream of charges goes one way, then the other, as the poles change. This is an alternating current (AC).

Switching back to atomic matters, think of a material that is either amorphous – atoms and ions floating around in or as a liquid – or structured like mineral crystals or even semi-solid like dirt. These materials can have very promiscuous electrons. They move easily from one atom to another. Or, they can be very chaste electrons and are constrained from moving. The first type of slutty electrons move randomly, from one atom to another, in any direction. But, if you think of putting an electrode, a positive electric pole (anode) in one part of the material and a negative electrode (cathode) in another part, the resulting electric potential field will force the electrons into a more coherent stream – a current. Sex club materials are conductors. Church going matter is an insulatos. None of this is perfect as all conductors are not the same, nor or all insulators – we’ve all heard of semi-conductors. The more conductive a material, the less electrical resistance it has. Less conductive materials have higher resistance. Resistivity and conductivity are inverses of each other – high conductivity is low resistivity and high resistivity is low conductivity.

Magnetism

We all know what magnets are – pieces of metal that stick to some other metals. We know the earth has a magnetic field and that a compass, a free-floating magnetized needle, aligns itself – maintains its orientation – with the earth’s field. We discussed electricity above and it turns out that it and magnetism are two sides of the same coin. When you have an electric current there is – automatically and inescapably – an induced magnetic field. A magnet, of any type, has a north and south pole – a dipole. Unlike electricity, there is no such thing as a magnetic monopole. The north-south poles – akin to positive and negative charges – cannot be separated.

We remember that electrons orbit – move around – a nucleus. A moving charge is a current and hence a magnetic dipole field is created. An electron spins and while this is somewhat difficult to visualize, that is also a current with an associated magnetic dipole. Protons also have magnetic fields – but much smaller than what is produced by electrons. Most atoms have their electrons orbiting and spinning in different directions, so their magnetic fields cancel. But sometimes they don’t. In some metals, most importantly iron, the tiny magnetic fields can align to produce a large magnetic field. An iron bar, for instance, in an external magnetic field, has its tiny iron magnets forcibily lined up, creating a stronger field around it. If the external field is strong enough, it can force the tiny iron magnets to permanently stay aligned – fridge magnets!

What constitutes an external magnetic field in geophysics? Due to the complicated flow of ionized plasma (a fourth state of matter in very hot conditions) in the fluid core, we have large electrical currents in the Earth producing a huge bar magnet with north and south magnetic poles. In addition, the solar ‘wind’ and radiation produces magnetic fields in the very upper atmosphere (as exemplified by the Aurorae – northern and southern lights). These are the external magnetic fields that can induce secondary magnetic fields in near surface minerals, like irons, that can be measured by geophysical means.

One of the most important magnetic minerals is magnetite. Minute amounts of magnetite – and other magnetic minerals – can be found in lots of natural materials like certain minerals. Things like pottery or soil have less or more of these minerals, causing small but measurable magnetic fields – their tiny quantities of magnetic minerals lining up in the external magnetic fields. You also have the case that a hot material, like a clay pot being fired in a kiln has no magnetic field because the heat makes all the particles move around randomly and more energetically than the external field can align them. But once the pot – or a hearth – cools below a certain temperature, the external field becomes more dominant and lines everything up and the magnetic particles freeze in place, becoming very weak, but still very measurable, permanent magnetics.

An important characteristic of materials is their magnetic susceptibility. It is a measure of how much a material will be magnetized – how much of an induced magnetic field will be produced – in the presence of an external field. Maybe think of this as a material acting as a magnetic amplifier – how powerful is its amplification. It is controlled by the amount of magnetic minerals, like magnetite, in a substance.

Electromagnetism

We’re not through with electricity and magnetism yet, alas. We’ve already discussed that electricity and magnetism are different faces of the same coin. The whole coin is electromagnetism. To stretch the metaphor even closer to breaking, it’s a coin that’s flipping through the air, glinting in the sun.

We know that charges have electric fields associated with them and magnetic dipoles have magnetic fields. But together, electric currents and moving magnetic dipoles have an aura – sorry for a new metaphor – around them. This aura is an electromagnetic field which manifests itself as an intertwined wave of electric and magnetic fields. Electric fields, magnetic fields and electromagnetic fields and waves are all manifestations of a single phenomenon.

Electromagnetic (EM) waves fill our entire space. Light is an EM wave. Radio and TV, mobile telephone, WiFi and Bluetooth are electromagnetic waves, as are radar and microwaves in your oven. Radiative heating – infrared – are EM waves. The entire range of EM goes from gamma rays (harmful ‘radiation’) with the highest frequencies onto the lower frequencies of ultraviolet, visible light, infrared and a very long range of low frequency radio waves.

Because EM waves are changing electric and magnetic fields, they will cause some materials to resonate, producing their own electric and magnetic fields – induced EM waves. Depending on the electric and magnetic properties – resistivity and conductivity, magnetic susceptibility and some others – these materials act, again drawing on metaphor, as EM amplifiers.

As something you really may not need to know, but you will see reference to if you learn more about such phenomena, are something called Maxwell’s Equations. These four laws, rules, or equations describe all the electric, magnetic and electromagnetic behavior we’ve just described. Along with Newton’s laws and the laws of Thermodynamics, Maxwell’s equations describe the entirety of classical (before Relativity and Quantum Mechanics) Physics. Those who understand these laws in their full mathematical glory control the universe[3].

Density

Perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of matter, though of less importance to us here as poetic geophysicists, is density. Density is simply the amount of matter – solid, liquid or gas – in a given amount of space. That is, so many kilograms per cubic meter, or whatever other units you want to use. Interestingly, the same material can have different densities. If you take a block of … something, whatever … and measure and calculate its density, you’ll get one value. Then if you drill big holes in that block and measure it again it’ll be less dense. Or if you take pieces of two different materials mixed together, you’ll get different densities of the composite depending on what ratios of each you add. This is the concept of bulk density – the density of the whole thing, warts, holes and all, which can be different from the inherent density of an undisturbed, whole material.

Matter gives rise to gravity. Gravity holds the universe together. It holds the earth together. It makes planets revolve around the sun and moons and satellites orbit around the planets. It keeps our feet on the ground and makes apples fall from their trees. The denser an object is, the more gravitational pull it has. The closer one is to a particular mass, the more gravitational force it has. While permeating the universe and keeping everything together gravity is actually one of the weakest forces in nature. You will not feel the miniscule gravitational pull of a bowling ball at your feet, but it turns out that we’re smart enough to construct instruments that can measure such weak forces.

Mechanical properties

Think of a rubber ball. You can squeeze it, squash it, bang it against a wall and it cheerfully bounces back to its original shape. Its ability to keep its shape after abuse is due to its elastic properties. So, how to think of elasticity? We can think of springs – you compress a spring, or pull it, and it ‘springs’ back to its default length when you let go, bouncing back and forth until it gets tired and stops. Going a bit further, we can think of matter as being made of a collection of tiny, tiny springs. Bang it with a hammer and we see the signal travel through the material as the minuscule springs compress and stretch as waves. Press on it for a very long time and the material deforms permanently – the springs weaken -anelastically. Take a sledgehammer to it and you break apart the spring connections and encounter brittle behavior. All of these modes of behavour are mechanical properties.

Anelasticity and brittle behavior are more in the realm of structural geology and geodynamics and doesn’t have a lot of relevance for [poetical] studies. In terms of geophysics overall, elasticity is very important since it provides the basic underpinnings of seismology. But seismology is a very small part of the geophysics used by [poets] as we’ll see. It’s important to be aware of it but we won’t dwell on it much further.

Isotopes and Radioactivity

Getting back to the nature of matter and the nuclei of atoms, we’ve described how each chemical element has nucleus with a distinct number of protons and an equal or greater quantity of neutrons that keep the nucleus stable and together – the glue as we’ve called it. In some cases, the same element can have more neutrons than others. They are isotopes of that element – chemically the same, but with more or less different nuclear attributes. These isotopes are identifiable, statistically distinctive and proportionally distributed.

As a nucleus gets heavier and heavier with more protons and neutrons, it becomes unstable – some isotopes being more unstable than their sisters. There are too many more protons than the neutrons can keep glued together. Sometimes more neutrons can even add to the nuclear instability. An unstable – a radioactive – nucleus can then spontaneously eject particles – two protons and two neutrons for instance – making itself lighter, happier and incidentally remaking itself – transmuting – into a new element. The two protons and neutrons are a helium nucleus and are ejected with some force so that they can penetrate matter to some extent. These nuclear bowling balls are called alpha radiation. Since alpha particles are big and heavy, they don’t travel far and can be stopped by relatively light materials.

Another way neutrons can relieve themselves is by beta radiation. Beta particles are electrons that are fired out of the nucleus when a neutron turns into a proton (plus and minus is zero, remember). As opposed to the alpha bowling balls, beta particles are high-velocity bullets, travelling faster and farther and able to penetrate through thicker materials.

When a nucleus transmutes by alpha or beta decay – the new nucleus has an excess of energy – it’s in an excited state. To calm itself it can radiate some of this energy as a very high frequency electromagnetic wave/particle (again, reference quantum mechanics) dubbed gamma radiation. Gamma rays are very energetic and very penetrative – laser death beams as opposed to bowling balls and high velocity bullets.

Radioactive elements decay in unique and statistically predictable ways. As an example half of any given amount of the isotope Uranium-238, the most common and abundant type of uranium, will decay to Thorium-234 in about 4.5 billion years – its half-life. This leads to a long chain of radioactive transmutations into daughter elements that ultimately lead to stable Lead-206. The relative abundance of isotopes in a composite material can tell us how old it is. This is the concept behind Carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 is an unstable, radioactive isotope of carbon with a half-life of 5730 years. The relative amount of Carbon-14 in a biological sample can tell us how long since that material died and stopped ingesting C-14.

We’ve described nuclear isotopes and radioactivity in some detail for the sake of completeness, but also because it is very important for many [poetical] studies. It is, however, more physics (and even, sigh, chemistry) than it is geophysics. But even so, there can be geophysical methods that measure the ambient radioactivity in an area that can help us focus field investigations.

Waves

Waves are very important in geophysics. Just about everything we can measure, the signals of physical characteristics we can record, can be looked at as a wave. Generic features of waves are used to describe any wave motion, be it on a rope, in water, sound, seismic, radio, or the way gravity and magnetism changes in an area and even the wavy nature of topography.

The simplest wave is a sine wave that you may remember from school maths. At some time or place, the wave starts at an equilibrium point – zero if you will. It smoothly increases in size to a maximum, ramps down back to zero then down to a minimum value before rising back to zero again. The length, or duration, of this one complete cycle is the wavelength or period. How many full wavelengths (or periods) within a set length (or time) is its frequency. A high frequency sound – a soprano voice – has its acoustic wave changing very quickly in time, so that it has a short period. A baritone – low frequency with a longer period (wavelength) has fewer full cycles in the same amount of time. The maximum/minimum value of the peak of the wave is its amplitude – its strength. A high amplitude sonic wave is louder than a low amplitude one. All more complex waves can be considered as mixtures of simpler sine waves that makes analysis tractable.

There can be some confusion here with wavelength versus period. In concept they are the same but differ in nuance. Wavelength is usually used for waves that can be measured with a ruler or tape measure (water waves or even topographic highs and lows). Period is usually used for waves that change in time (sound and radar waves). Even so, they can be related to each other – a sound wave of a particular period can have a calculated, equivalent wavelength. But in popular speech, they often mean the same thing.

Signals and sampling

If it hasn’t been understood yet, by osmosis, waves are a synonym of signal and in turn of data. We have a wave, a signal, coming at us and that we can measure as data. We might do this by means of a strip chart recorder – a measured signal is detected somehow and traced out by a pen on moving piece of paper that we can later use as data and analyze it. Here we have a continuous measurement of data and its wave shape as an analog signal. Such data isn’t necessarily easy or efficient or amenable for further analysis.

In our digital age we can try another approach, by simply take discrete measurements every so often and record them (write them down in a notebook or into a computer file). These are very amenable to further analysis and interpretation by slide-rule, calculator or more reasonably by computer. It turns out we don’t need to see the minute details of the signal, but just representative parts of it. The question then becomes, how often do we do this in order – how often do we sample that signal – to accurately define the wave?

It turns out that for a particular wavelength/period, we need to sample the wave at least twice. That allows us to uniquely define the waveshape of the signal. If it’s less, we miss things and will misinterpret it. If we sample more, there is no problem other than perhaps getting more data than we need or can handle. This is in the realm of something called digital sampling theory.

One other important aspect of data and of signals – whether analog or digital – is something called noise. Noise is sometimes incoherent and random, sometimes not. One person’s signal can be another person’s noise – Beethoven to one versus Lady Gaga to another. Noise is omnipresent and can sometimes overwhelm, despite everything we can do in the measurement or post-processing realm.

More generally though, talking about more concrete things like finding your keys dropped in a field after a dust storm, how often do we need to dig a hole in the hopes of finding them? This is also sampling theory, but since we not looking for sinusoidal signals, it’s a bit different. Just to make things a bit more reasonable, lets talk about finding your car buried after a huge snow storm.  Here, for a car about 2×3 meters in size, we can probably find it if we dig a hole every two meters. If we do it every four meters, there is a good chance we’ll miss it. Digging every meter will guarantee we find it, but at a back-breaking expense. What if we’re looking for the highway buried by the snow? In that case, you can probably dig a trench and be sure of finding it if you ‘sample’ – place your trench – at right angles to the known orientation of the road. It becomes obvious that any sampling procedure – for concrete items or physical signals – needs to be carefully planned based on your needs and expectations.

Anomalies and Interpretation

After we measure physical fields we need to be able to make sense of them. Generally speaking, physical measurements, depending on the way we record and visualize them, can look like pimples and blobs on an otherwise blotchy surface. Pimples and blobs that are conspicuous can be termed anomalies. The word anomaly simply means something strange, out of the ordinary, out of place.

In geophysics an anomaly means that you see a signal that sticks out from all the other measurements. It is intriguing but not necessarily indicative of something interesting or a signal from something we hope to be there. It could easily be just noise. It is, alas, a characteristic of most – if not all – geophysical measurements that they do not show us explicitly what is there. Do you remember one of the first scenes from the movie “Jurassic Park”? The ‘scientists’ use some single, sharp sound source (in actuality a seismic ‘shotgun’) that results in a highly resolved ‘radar’ image of a buried, complete dinosaur skeleton. We will not bore you with debunking the multiple mistakes, errors, misnomers and plain bullshit displayed – ‘shoot the radar into the ground’ indeed!

In any case, strange blobs indicative of interest might or might not be that different from other strange blobs from uninteresting things. It is possible, to some degree, to characterize the sub-surface in more detail than that and pull out real physical parameters that allow us to identify specific materials. But that is difficult and more often than not, especially with less experienced and knowledgeable practitioners, we descend to ‘anomaly hunting’ and then can make the mistake of identifying them with our targets. Let’s not be too strict here, seeing a few geophysical anomalies, especially if they conform to the known characteristics of what we’re looking for, is much better than digging holes and trenches, no matter how well-planned. Again, the information we get from a field measurement will depend not only on the methods used, but the skill and knowledge of the one analysing the data.

Analysing signals, interpreting data, is an important skill that can be more akin to artistry than science. Yes, there are scientific methods of analysis that can to some degree quantify the physical parameters that we’ve discussed above. But in the end, even the most sophisticated analysis needs interpretation. It requires the knowledgeable and experienced mind of an ‘interpreter’, someone who can take the data, the images, the analytical results and spin a meaningful and realistic story of what is buried.

Further, having said all sorts of disparaging things about blobs, they can also cohere and align into patterns that are recognized by the knowledgeable practioner. One only needs to think of a radiologist who can interpret the various shadows on an x-ray that mean nothing to most of us.

Summing up

To sum everything up, geophysical measurements of physical fields are powerful methodologies to characterize the subsurface and to find specific articles buried in an area. But geophysical exploration requires several things. It’s important to understand the physical properties of matter and how they react and create physical fields, the intricacies of measurements the earth and how these impact the process of interpreting them to understand things under our feet.

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[1] The why of this is in the realm of quantum mechanics, but hasn’t much to do with Schrodinger’s cat.

[2] We promised physics and are now getting into Chemistry. Physicists are loathe to say so in mixed company, but they consider chemistry to be just applied physics.

[3] Sort of.

Two Ukrainian mystery novels in English translation

Ukrainian genre fiction, like Ukrainian literature in general, isn’t well translated into other languages. So, it is very heartening to see that Glagoslav Publications (https://glagoslav.com/), a small British-Dutch press, offers two Ukrainian mystery-detective novels in English translation. “The Night Reporter” by Yuri Vynnychuk was published in 2022 and Andriy Kokotiukha’s “The Lawyer from Lychakiv Street” earlier in 2020.

Yuri Vynnychuk is a Ukrainian writer with a wide range of work, including fantasy, adventure and historical fiction. One of his short stories was the lead entry and provided the title for the recent anthology of Ukrainian Science Fiction and Fantasy published in English translation, “Embroidered Worlds” (https://www.atthisarts.com/product/embroidered-worlds/). Vynnchuk was born in 1952 in the western Ukrainian city of Stanislaviv (currently Ivan-Frankivsk) where he was graduated from its university. He moved to Lviv where he was better able to avoid the Soviet authorities annoyed by his independent creative ways. In Lviv he worked as a ghost-writer, a journalist and involved himself in the theatre before being able to go public in the environment of Perestroika in the waning days of the Soviet Union.

His novel, originally published in Kharkiv in 2019, introduces the journalist – the ‘night reporter’ – Marko Krylovych who covers the criminal underground of pre-war, pre-Soviet, 1938 Lviv. An inveterate womanizer who can’t keep out of trouble, Krylovych investigates a murder involving corrupt politicians and businessmen. The novel is distinctly and delightfully noirish and very beautifully evokes the city of Lviv on the cusp of leaving Polish domination for that of the Soviet Union and Russia. The solid translation from Ukrainian to English was done by Michael Naydan and Alla Perminova. If one cares to, the book is also available on audible where it is narrated by the voice actor Mark J. Royse. “The Night Reporter” is the first of a series with three more novels featuring Marko Krylovych, published from 2019 to 2023, detailing his exploits into the Soviet era. All three of these subsequent novels are still waiting to be translated.

Andriy Kokotiukha was born in 1970 in Nizhyn, a small city near Chernihiv and to the north-east of Kyiv. He started writing at the age of 7 and took a degree in journalism from Kyiv University. His first official work appeared in 1987 and he has reportedly just published his 100^th book. Besides his fiction writing, he has worked as a journalist and script writer.

His mystery novel, “The Lawyer from Lychakiv Street” was released in English translation in 2020, some 5 years after its first Ukrainian publication. Here, the young lawyer Klym Khoshovy flees the tsarist police in 1908 Kyiv after dabbling in revolutionary activities and ends up in Austrian Lviv. He stumbles across the body of a local lawyer and is embroiled in the investigation involving Lviv’s criminal underworld, unsympathetic imperial police and Russian saboteurs. The story, like Vynnychuk’s, is also notably evocative of early 20^th century Lviv and its peoples, but far less noir. It is rendered into English by the veteran translator Yuri Tkacz.

“The Lawyer of Lychakiv Street” is followed by nine more novels with Klym Koshovy, chronicling his further adventures in Austrian Lviv, the Russian occupation of the city during the first world war, the struggle for Ukrainian independence and then into exile in Paris. None of these subsequent adventures have been translated yet.

Glagoslav Publications needs to be better recognized and supported for their efforts in making Slavic and Eastern European literature available in English (and Dutch!). They need encouragement to continue to make all the adventures of reporter Marko Krylovych and lawyer Klym Koshovy available to the English language reader.

The Lost Visions of Harlan Ellison

There’s been an interesting juxtaposition of recently published books that shed light on two of the most notorious events in Science Fiction history – “The Last Dangerous Visions” and “The Starlost”, both involving the venerated writer, Harlan Ellison.

Ellison was a very prolific writer of short stories. He bridled at being called a “Science Fiction” writer, preferring to be known as a fantasist. Nevertheless, he was extremely well-known, and even deified, in the American Science Fiction community with countless fans and many writer friends. He was also known for writing – initial version at least – some very celebrated TV episodes. He was also very (‘very’ is an adverb that can often be used with Ellison) combative, abrasive, belligerent, egotistical and not to mention litigious. His struggles with corporate hacks and the morally compromised are well mythologized.

In 1967 Ellison, as editor, published a landmark anthology of Science Fiction stories called “Dangerous Visions”. It was touted, by some, as a generational broadside against conservatism and censorship. The book was followed in 1972 by “Again, Dangerous Visions”. In 1973 Ellison announced “The Last Dangerous Visions” and despite accepting over 100 stories, he never published it. This has been a major cause célèbre in the SF community for over a half century. J. Michael Straczynski, the TV and comic book writer, as the executor of Ellison’s estate, finally produced a version only within the last month (October 2024).

In his long introduction to the anthology, Straczynski recounted the saga of “The Last Dangerous Visions”, his close friendship with Ellison and the revelation that Ellison suffered from bipolar disorder and clinical depression which went untreated until close to Ellison’s death in 2018. His mental condition is cited as the reason he was not able to concentrate on big projects and gather the spiritual energy to finish the grand undertaking he had conceived.

But, cut back to the early 1970s. Ellison was contracted to create a syndicated TV Science Fiction series, “The Starlost”. For various reasons, the show, starring Kier Dullea from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, was produced in Canada. Ellison renounced it, invoking his right to use the byline ‘Cordwainer Bird’ on the first episode, the only one that used any substantial amount of his work. He published a savage attack on the series. The Starlost is commonly thought of as one of the worst Science Fiction shows of all time. Though that is arguable, what is undeniable is that the series had multiple issues.

At almost the same time that Straczynski published his revelations of Ellison’s mental state, Den Valdron published “Starlost Unauthorized”, his history of the series. In one chapter Valdron analyzes Ellison’s account, squaring it with other available information. I quote: “But at least some of the show’s problems have to come down to Harlan Ellison half-assing his way through.”, “He [Ellison] procrastinated and delayed far longer than he had any justifiable reason … he delivered an unfilmable script at the last minute.”, “For all his protests of playing the victim, Harlan Ellison’s version has discrepancies … some of his details are untrue or nakedly self-serving, his protests of naiveté ring false … he likely exaggerated.”

What is particularly interesting is that Ellison’s disastrous involvement in “The Starlost” came at the same time as he started to lose control over “The Last Dangerous Visions”. Perhaps Ellison has more to answer for than many would credit. This is not to belittle Ellison’s struggle with mental illness. But it does show that the narratives we grew up with – “Worst SF show of all time” – are often in reality more complex and nuanced than we realize. Beware of your heros.

Review: The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (Oksana Zabuzhko)

I feel as if I’ve run a marathon. Not a semi-marathon, not a10k run but the full 42Km. I have just finished listening to the English translation audiobook of Oksana Zabuzhko’s “Museum of Abandoned Secrets” – all 30 hours of it. I’ve never run a marathon, but I do imagine now what it’s like to pass the finish line. Like for my imagined marathoners, parts of my listening were pleasant and maybe even exhilarating, but in the end it was grueling.

To be clear, I am reviewing the English translation, by Nina Murray, of Zabuzhko’s novel as narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal. As such, anything good or bad, could be attributed to the translator or reader, rather than the original author. But as we’ll see, I do think that Zabuzhko’s intent is well portrayed.

“The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” takes place in two major timelines – western Ukraine in the 1940s and Kyiv in the early 2000s. The 1940s recounts episodes in the life of a Ukrainian insurgent fighting Poles, Germans and Soviets. In the 2000s, the protagonist is a television journalist who is struggling to produce a documentary on the Ukrainian independence struggle before, during and after the second world war. The plot, as such, revolves around unraveling the historical mystery and legacy of the insurgents.

So, the plot – ah, the plot – is ostensibly about a slowly emerging understanding of the historical events and their links to the modern protagonist’s family and friends. It is, however, quite successfully masked by extensive excursions, divergences and scenes of often seemingly little relevance which can be trying to the reader (or listener).

This isn’t to say that Zabuzhko’s work is totally without merit. She does have talent as a writer. She has an eloquent and fluent gift of expressing herself. But as a story, this novel is seriously flawed.

Zabuzhko is the queen of digression, slathering layer upon layer of narratives till one forgets what the main scene is about. There are lengthy commentaries – rants – not to put too fine a point on it – whose main advantage is that they can be mined for pithy epigrams. She uses foreshadowing – even seemingly violating Chekhov’s law – only to manipulate emotion. Her use of recent historical episodes, mixing truth with fiction – confuses. Such is not necessarily a crime, this is fiction of course but it does leave the reader adrift in a sea of – if not fake – suspect news. And, in this manner, she indulges in personal attacks – revenge – on very thinly fictionalized real contemporary figures.

One disturbing element of the novel is Zabuzhko’s use of, perhaps magical realism or perhaps outright fantasy. But the methods and traditions of either genre are violated – or at best mixed –leaving all unsatisfied. A writer, of course, has licence – even a duty – to confound expectations, but it must work and here it doesn’t – the uncanny valley of literary expression perhaps.

A large part of the novel involves a saccharine, treacly, fantastical description of a romantic relationship and contrasting descriptions of sometimes impersonal and cringe-worthy sex. While one should be careful about attributing a writer’s personal view from their fiction, her description of love and sex seems like projecting. The romantic storyline is embarrassing and much like a parent endlessly talking about their genius, talented, precious children. The sex scenes are fairly graphic, but not pornographic – not meant to titulate – much to their detriment but can be relegated to the theme of ‘too much information’. And, despite her reputation as a feminist, Zabuzhko’s sexual politics in this novel are regressive.

Though Zabuzhko can put words together winningly, her authorial voice in this work is highly problematic. She expresses an angry, bitter, poisonous cynicism, an unfocused self-indulgent, judgemental hatred that at a superficial glance could pass for profundity. Further, her self-indulgent, sophomoric, pseudo-freudian philosophizing becomes simply tiresome.

In the end, what is this book about? About the persistence of family and society? Links from one era to another – truths and lies uncovered? Is it about Ukrainian self-determination? Or maybe individual self-determination? Maybe about love and relationships? About art? Is it a historical mystery? I really don’t know – maybe all of that muddled together.

Having written all that, why did I listen for 30 long hours? Zabuzhko does have talent as a wordsmith, and it shines through the English version. Nina Murray’s translation is excellent. One feels that whatever Zabuzhko can do in Ukrainian, Murray has been able to render it into English perfectly. My only quibble with the English is the use of Americanisms. Why must Ukrainians be portrayed as going to college and measuring in feet? That, of course, is an editorial decision so I will not belabor the point.

The audiobook is excellently narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, herself a successful writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy, a puppeteer and a voice actor. Kowal has a pleasantly serious voice here, able to even out some of Zabuzhko’s more malicious prose. Her narration allowed me to get through this in a way that perhaps wouldn’t have been possible if I’d been reading it. However, there is one irritating aspect of the narrative – Kowal is either unable or constrained in her pronunciation of Ukrainian names and places. Is this also an editorial decision to pronounce names as an unfamiliar American would? I don’t know, but it is problematic for anyone knowledgeable about Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Despite my problems with “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” I can’t totally reject it. Zabuzhko is a well-known contemporary Ukrainian writer and cannot be ignored. Her works and her persona as a public intellectual are part of current Ukrainian society. If one is interested in running a marathon, this is a good opportunity.

Trading with the Stars – Galactic Trade in a Science Fictional Universe

If humanity ever reaches the stars, will we need or want to conduct trade? This is, of course, ‘What If’ – the essence of Science Fiction. By making assumptions on the conditions of star systems, the levels of technology available and how interstellar travel and colonization (whatever we mean by that) might work we can start to imagine what such trade could be like.

First, and most obvious, we have to assume that there are solar systems with planets and moons, and perhaps orbital spaces, that humans could inhabit. There must be places where humans would want to live; they would have to be able to breathe and take shelter and produce, in some way or another, food and drink. It’s becoming more and more clear, as research continues, that extra-solar planets are common. This seems to be a safe assumption.

We’ll also assume that we will choose systems that are not resource poor. There are enough planets, in the galaxy, we believe, that people will not need to choose to live on a low-density planet without much aluminum, iron and other heavier elements. There will be enough star systems, we can safely assume, that have plenty of mineral and chemical resources, either on the colony planet itself or on nearby moons and asteroids.

Then, we want to assume that there is relatively cheap faster-than-light travel. A trader will not set out with cargo that her great-grandchildren will deliver to no-longer interested second or third generation populations. Nor would these populations want to pay outrageous prices for goods, as we’ll see, they may not need to simply survive. So, we will propose ships that would move us from one star system to the next in, say, a few weeks or a month or two, without too much relativistic time dilation and at reasonable cost.

Further, given the advanced technologies that allow for such interstellar travel, there should be equally sophisticated expertise and devices that allow the manufacturing and production of known materials and substances. There will be 3D printers and synthesizers and so on that will be able create any pharmaceutical, building material, industrial compound or known machines, all using local resources.

Just to make things a bit more interesting, we’ll assume that there is no faster-than-light communication, a la Le Guin’s ‘ansible’. Information will only be conveyed physically over human travel-times. This would be similar to the pre-telegraph, pre-oceanic cable, times before the mid 19^th century on Earth.

With assumptions out of the way, let’s start with what wouldn’t be traded. Those would be things that are easily found or can be created anywhere and have no distinct difference with what Earth can produce.

If hydrocarbons were still important to a developing interstellar society, there would be no need to transport them from planet to planet. There’s nothing special about petroleum, just biological material subjected to heat and pressure in the relatively shallow part of a planet’s crust. Any planet with carbon-based biology (would we try to settle anywhere else?) and active geology would very naturally have its own oil and gas. Hydrocarbons as a fuel may not even be necessary for a colony, given future technologies. Plastics and other ‘petrochemicals’ could be manufactured from most biological material, whether local or terraformed or otherwise able to grow in alien soil. In addition, methane, CH₄, combining universally ubiquitous carbon and hydrogen (a potential fuel in itself), is a large constituent of the atmospheres of very common gas giant planets as well as some of their satellites. So, no interstellar tankers.

In the same way, ores, metals and chemicals will not be traded. The universe is relatively homogeneous in its composition and any solar systems that might be poor in heavier elements would no-doubt be ignored for settlement. But even a relatively low-density system could have enough resources to support some sort of society. Mining and other natural resource extraction would be done locally, whether on a planet or other astronomical objects like moons and asteroids, in the settled stellar system itself.

Growing food is relatively easy given energy and the right conditions. Human outposts could be self–sufficient in food even with only greenhouses, hydroponics, aquaculture or manipulating yeast cultures. Hence, there wouldn’t be any need for trade in basic foodstuffs. There would be no ships’ holds stuffed with metric tons of rice, wheat or barley or frozen shrimp.

Medicines, being just (sometimes very) complex chemical compounds, can be synthesized anywhere from specifications given the appropriate technologies we assume and the chemical elements available everywhere in the universe.

So, what’s left? What will our settlers want? There won’t be anything they really need, as we’ve just discussed. But they will crave things; reminders and tastes of old Earth. What they’ll want are luxuries, things they can easily live without, but don’t want to. They’ll desire things that make their lives a bit more interesting, more colorful; items that are unique and prestigious.

Alcohol will be produced locally, of course, as a side product of food production. But there will probably be a strong market for genuine Scotch single-malts. Japanese and Indian whiskies might be popular. American bourbon may become legendary and sought after in the Galaxy, as might Jamaican and Cuban rums and French Caribbean Rhum Agricole. What well-off colonist, other than the most conservative bigot, could resist premium French or Napa Valley vintages? And imagine the excitement when a shipment of kegs of Fuller’s ESB arrives, or Guinness? What about specially curated crates of assorted Belgian bottled beers? Beer may be a special case as it might not travel well. That would depend on whether travel-times would be comparable, say, to sail-times for IPAs from Britain to India in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. CPA – Centurian Pale Ale – anyone?

Thinking about that, while food isn’t necessary, Iranian caviar (assuming the Russian and Kazakh Caspian fishing industries don’t recover) and French Foie Gras would be sought-after delicacies, as would German salami, French Saucisson and Spanish Jamón ibérico.  And, how many, given adequate finances, would pass up the chance for Brazilian or Jamaican coffee beans? How about real English Breakfast Tea or Earl Grey? Settlers might be able to grow their own perfectly adequate – or maybe superior – equivalents, but let’s not disregard snob appeal.

Our emigrant artisans would be anxious to get a hold of Terran oak, cedar, maple and beech and other woods. In that vein, colonists might be tempted to purchase new arrivals of Terran designed furniture and household items and perhaps even the latest Milanese fashions.

Given our assumption of no faster-than-light wireless communication, any information could only be carried by starships. Our interstellar pioneers would only be able to get the latest scholarship, fiction and journalism from newly arrived ships from Earth, just as in pre-20^th century Earth. In the same way, videos (whatever movies and tv will morph into in the future), fashion (designs if not actual clothing), software, electronic and industrial designs and digital files for 3D printing could only travel in physical starships. These are just bits and bytes easily stored in memory and downloaded at their destination. Newly developed medicines wouldn’t be shipped, as we’ve discussed, but the specifications for their synthesis would be.

Art works – paintings, prints, sculpture – are probably the defining items of uniqueness, as well as signs of prestige and luxury. Art cannot be copied by definition; it must be transported as created. If colonial survival was assured, humans will want distinctive and exclusive items to display in their homes and workspaces.

What can be sent back to earth? One imagines that new worlds will have particular, useful and beautiful biological materials – most probably wood or wood-like, or maybe interesting fibers – that Earth artisans can use for building, furniture and art. One can imagine finding one-of-a-kind biological compounds, unthought of to human science, whose chemical structure could be digitally recorded and transported back. Luxury food items, originally from Earth but genetically modified or hybridized would undoubtedly be a sensation. Things like coffee and tea are obvious items. New Worlds wines, brandies and whiskies are another. Think of the terroir!

After survival was insured, after conditions for receiving terran goods were achieved, our émigrés wouldn’t be sitting around their printers and synthesizers just surviving. They, like all humans, given the time and resources, would create. They would study and research and write monographs. They’d write stories and make music and record videos. New Worlds art works might even be more avidly collected on Earth than in their original frontier settlements.

So, we’ve established that we will want certain things from each other. But what would be the incentives for merchants to practice such trade? Barter may be one way. A trader invests in a cargo on Earth and arrives in, say, the Kepler 442 system. Negotiations will take place to exchange their cargo of French cognac, Brazilian Cumaru wood and the latest Penguin Books releases (as licensed e-texts). They’ll return with Keplerian coffee beans and the charmingly naïve sculptures of a 2^nd generation colonist. Or, they’ll take that cargo on to the next port.

Traders will have to accept – at least in part – local credit. They’ll need to obtain fuel, repair and maintenance services and consumables. Credits might be transferrable from one planet to another if appropriate financial cooperation is negotiated; credits being simply computer code with agreed upon conditions and value. Can cryptocurrencies be created for intergalactic trade?

What about illicit trade? Trade in general implies control, duties, taxes and tariffs. This means that there will be smuggling – don’t discount the human instinct for bypassing the system. How smuggling would work with advanced surveillance and scanning technology is anyone’s guess – but we can’t discount corruption and bribery and landing cargo pods on uninhabited continents and islands after careful consideration of radar blind spots, if the colony is even that sophisticated and organized.

What about restricted recreational drugs? Whether those will be defined as illegal will depend on local planetary politics. In any case, they’d probably not be transported in physical form. Like medicines, it’s much easier to transport digital specifications for synthesizing the latest party favors locally. Or, alternatively, physical drugs will be transported because it may be easier to smuggle small, physical things, rather than computer memory and code that can be efficiently scanned. And, of course, terran cannabis types, legal or not, would be appreciated just like Scots whiskies.

What could be the darkest form of trade? Even in the early 21^st Century, slavery still exists. In a Galactic context, with vast, empty spaces confounding efficient policing, slavery would probably be even easier than a few centuries ago. Even if Empires or Unions or Federations with strong laws could exist, it’s always easy enough for dissenters to hop one or two systems further and practice the society of their dreams – and everyone else’s nightmares. As the current world situation attests, humanity may have evolved technologically, but not necessarily morally.

What if we find other beings that are as smart and ambitious as we are? Would we be able to bridge the extremely treacherous chasms of biology, linguistics and culture? What could they possible have that we’d want? Maybe some of the same things we’ve already talked about? Definitely information and technology would be a successful commodity. We’ll know how to do some things better than them and they’ll know other things we don’t. But, that’s for another discussion.

What if our assumptions change? What if faster-than-light travel indeed is impossible? What if settlement is only feasible by generation ships or suspended animation or taking advantage of time-dilation by near-light travel? It’s safe to say, in that case, that there will be no physical trade. Digital signals, ideas and information, can still be sent about, but the time scales will be immense. And how will it be paid for? Can anyone be trusted with sending back similarly valuable ideas and will anyone care after several years? Or, will it usher in an era of true altruism where trade becomes sharing only for the greater good? Again, that’s grounds for other speculation.

In the end, after having enough to eat and being able to build shelter and generally having satisfied their immediate needs, people will want more. They will want things that will satisfy their souls or more probably make them the envy of their neighbors. Merchants and traders will be more than happy to help them meet their desires while fulfilling their own need to freely roam the galaxy and experience the ultimate adventure.

Snippets from a time travel fantasy

Snippet 1

“Meneer! Sir! I have what you’ve been looking for!” The man behind the book laden table addressed me in English accented with good-natured, gutturally musical Dutch. A bright bulb was hanging just behind him and I had a hard time making out his features, or whatever it was he was offering me.

The morning was crisp and misty with the winter sun just beginning to backlight Den Haag’s high-rises in the near distance. Het Plein, just a few steps from my Holiday Inn Express, was bustling with book sellers setting up their stalls. I was on my pre-breakfast stroll and had unexpectedly come upon, I discovered later, the weekly book market.

“Excuse me? I’m just strolling. Perhaps I’ll come by later… sorry, I’m not really looking for anything.” I was somewhat taken aback – the Dutch and their directness!

“Of course you’ll come backl! But you can’t be sure that someone else won’t pick up this bargain! And isn’t it always the case? You’re not looking for anything, then it stares you in the face and you’ve found it! Or in this case, you’re not searching for anything when a discerning vendor recognizes your most secret desires.”

My eyes had adjusted enough to the bright light and murky dawn to make out a tall, big-boned figure. He was 50-ish, but his Dutch blondness hid any grey hairs. He held a large book in both hands. His patter was enough to intrigue despite myself.

“What is it?” I asked.

He carefully lay the volume down in front of me on top of a pile of Dutch and English books devoted to the Second World War. It looked, even to my less than expert eyes, as a very old book; much older by far than what I expected was usually offered in a market like this. He very carefully opened the cover and beckoned me to look closer.

It was, I saw, printed in Cyrillic, with a smaller inscription in Latin on the lower quarter of the title page. Title page? That should help date it I thought. When did printers started putting title pages on their books? I wasn’t sure as there was a lag of several decades as printing moved from Germany eastward. I looked closer and struggled to decode the unfamiliar font. It was, I could readily see, Old Slavic – or whatever one called the literary language of the eastern Slavs in the 16th century – Old Ukrainian? Old Belarusian? It certainly didn’t look like Church Slavonic. The Latin was obviously a translation of the Slavic, and it helped me somewhat. I puzzled out the long title;

“Being a true, when not fabricated, history of kiy’s glorious city, situated on the heights above the great river Slavuta, from times immemorial, since the founding of the city just after the world flood, or comparable time, and onwards to beyond the farthest future, to the heat death of the universe, as told to the author, Michael of the far times, by the many and varied citizens themselves, published in the city of Lions by Ivan, the son of Fedor, known as the Muscovite, in the year 1582.”

“Heat death of the universe” I muttered. That was the closest translation I could come up with. But what the f…

“But … that doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.” I was sure that I was being made the butt of an elaborate prank. In fact, I looked around the growing crowd of early-bird book and vinyl browsers, trying to make out any of my academic colleagues. No, no one familiar.

I looked at the book again. I wasn’t an expert, my experience with old books was primarily with facsimiles and photographs and more with transcripts; I was always more interested in the text itself rather than the object. But I looked more carefully and gingerly touched it. The bookseller didn’t wince, so I was emboldened to turn the pages.

It wasn’t new, that much was for certain. But that didn’t mean it has half a millennium old. The pages, as of good  condition as they were, did have a sort of convincing brittleness.  “1582?” I said. “I didn’t know that Fedorov was printing then.” I looked and there was Federov’s colophon, just as in the reproductions of his Ostrivsky Bible.

“There’s so much, meneer, that we don’t know,” he said.

Now I knew he was having me on.

“This is garbage!” I was getting upset. “The title is totally anachronistic! It’s a parody of the 18th century! The ideas are so anachronistic, and with modern irony! This is obviously a fake!”

He took my anger in stride. “It’s possible, but wouldn’t it be an interesting one? And what kind of fake? And why? If it is, if it isn’t otherwise.”

I looked at him. He was looking at me with what I took for amused seriousness.

“Who are you?” I asked in Ukrainian. I repeated it in Russian.

He just smiled and said, in English, “50 euros and it’s yours.”

“I only have 35,” I lied.

“Done! It’ll fit perfectly in your bag, no need to waste a plastic sack.” He said this almost as if it were the most important part of the transaction. I don’t even remember why I’d thought to take my sack with me this morning.

My feelings were contradictory. The price was almost laughable, even for a fake. I was excited and suspicious and embarrassed by turns. I was too flustered to even ask him his name or for a card. Maybe I felt I’d find him again next Thursday, in the same place as I was planning to still be here, meeting with colleagues after the conference.

I walked, hurriedly, without paying attention to the traffic on the narrow street, back to my hotel.

…

I forgot about breakfast as I started reading, my iPad Slavic dictionary open and practically smoking as I looked up words and terms. Today’s conference in Leiden was forgotten – thankfully my presenation had been yesterday.

The first chapter claimed to be an interview, by “Michael of the far times” with Lybid, the sister of Kiy, the traditional founder of Kyiv.

The invariable formula listing the founders of Kyiv was, “Kyi, Shcheck, Khoriv and their sister Lybid”. Blah, blah, blah … and Lybid. The brothers and an addendum … The important ones and a hanger-on … She only existed as a silhouette in the brilliance of her brothers. I’d always found that puzzling. I was always intrigued about Lybid, the person behind the cutout, convinced there was something profound behind the name.

The interview was, on one hand, delightful, but an obvious modern take on themes of feminism and attribution of invention. It turns out, according to this Lybid, and I paraphrase, that Kyi was a power hungry asshole, brother Shcheck an incestuous brute and Khoriv a drunken idiot. She was, apparently, the real power behind the building of the city and a real charmer. I was brought to mind of a mixture of Roxolana, Yulia Tymoshenko, Ruslana Lyzychko and Olga Kurylenko.

The second chapter was Michael’s personal take on Lybid. He described her as a “black-browed beauty” – another anachronism, this time of the 19th century! She was independently and fiercely intelligent, simultaneously serious and flirtatious. He was obviously enamoured of her. I could see why. My god!, I was actually falling for this! I wanted to believe!

The next chapter was a profile of Kyi himself. He was too important – self important it was implied – to actually talk to Michael personally. Despite that, the portrait was more nuanced than Lybid’s biased description. He too was intelligent, though stubbornly short-sighted and yet highly ambitious, craving the power to create … something he didn’t quite understand himself. He was self-absorbed and not empathetic. He disliked his sister, whom, it was implied, challenged and confronted his unexamined assumptions.

I was in the middle of the account of Shchek’s – highly embarrassing and unsuccessful – attempt to sleep with his sister when my phone rang.

It took me some time to realize what was happening. I was mesmerized by – as faux as it was – the vividly accurate, if stylistically anachronistic, stories of historically grey times. I became conscious of the phone just as it stopped ringing. It started again almost immediately.

“Yes?” I answered, a feeling of unreality suffusing me. Telephones? Anachronisms?

“Hello, this is Michael. Lybid would like to meet you”.

…

 

Snippet 2

“Does this mean something?” I asked, “is this part of the process?”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s just the usual bullshit,” Michael told me. We were standing in one of the tunnels of the old military wall on Kyiv’s Bald Mountain. There was an empty wine bottle standing on the floor. I was staring into one of the holes in the wall covered with soot and melted wax.

“These walls are just over 100 years old, only – very prosaic, very useless. Satanists and other idiots come into these passages here to do whatever deluded things they do.”

“Still, it’s unworldly, isn’t it?”

“So’s a horror movie, and just as real. Let’s go.”

We continued on our way. I tried to get a sense of direction, as I might have to navigate here myself some day, maybe. The leafeless forest was oppressing The trees were eerie, taking on anthromorphic shapes in my mind. There was no snow, which perhaps made it easier to navigate the vague paths.

 

“Here it is,” Michael said. “You’ll need to pay for entry.” He threw a coin on top of the grain already in the bowled depression in rock in front of a small wooden idol. I followed suit.

“This is it,” he continued, “Lisa Hora, Bald Mountain – the original. There were reasons witches danced here. There’re reasons why new age idiots come here. There’s power here. They don’t know how to access it, how to use it, but they can feel something.”

Past the little idol and it’s collection bowl, there was a much larger four-faced wooden idol, in the middle of the clearing. Each face had huge carved Slavic moustaches. There was a stone alter on one side, with the remains of offerings of bread and grain. There was one other, a blond haired young man dressed in black.

“And, for us? Should we feel something?”

“Don’t you? Were we wrong about you? No, of course not. Sorry. it takes some time. It’s overwhelming and sometimes the right senses don’t want to recognize it right away. Well, it’s a place of power. And it’s a place that concentrates any power that one has. And the … well, the membranes I suppose … between worlds and between times are weaker. Power, the right kind, can get us through those … membranes. Sorry, I don’t have the proper vocabulary, not in English.”

“Is he … one of us?” I asked, looking at the blond-haired man in black.

“No, we’ll wait till he’s gone.”

And so we did.

…

 

Snippet 3

As always, the time portal was notoriously imprecise. Its inherent errors meant you couldn’t be sure of the time to more than a year or so and the location to more than several tens of kilometers. I was lucky in that I arrived in late spring or early summer, not winter. But of what year exactly? And how far was I from where I wanted to be?

I remained lucky. I saw a village not far away, in the growing dusk. A horse lazily cropped the grass nearby.

I sat next to the horse for a while, letting the time-travel wooziness wear off. I examined the village with my binoculars. There was a church, maybe with a priest who had some idea of dates and geography.

My luck continued to hold. There was a priest and I could smell horilka on his breath – less chance of him making trouble – who’d believe a rambling, drunken priest making wild pronouncements? In halting Church Slavonic – a better choice than 21^st Century Ukrainian – I asked him how far away Kyiv was. Fifty versts due west he told me. Despite his inebriation, he eyed me suspiciously and hesitated in answering my next question, ‘What year is it? What date?” He answered finally, slowly, some Monday in May, 1755. Both answers were close enough. I left him. I think he was put out I didn’t even ask him the name of the village.

I walked until it was too dark to see. I set up a quick bivouac, ate cold rations and rolled up in my sleeping robe. Despite my fatigue – time lag if you will – I was too excited to fall asleep quickly. I stared up at the stars till sleep finally came.

Fifty versts, maybe, but I chose to travel cross-field. I didn’t even look for a road. All roads lead to Kyiv, of course, but I wasn’t that anxious to meet anyone more curious and observant than a soused pip. And my language wasn’t quite up to it for this time period; not yet.

Finally, by dusk of the rainy second day, I found myself on the left bank of the Dnipro. And there, on the hilly opposite bank I could make out the Bell Tower of the Caves Monastery.

Now, just to find the ferry, get over the river and do what had to be done.

 

– End for now –

 

 

 

Photo Story – Delivery Blues

Humans waiting to pick up food delivery orders – early 21^st Century.

“Aargh! Goddammit! Bloody overgrown rats!”

The giant rabbit, its ears pasted against its skull, tore down the street. Its insulated backup seemed about to tear loose, despite the sophisticated set of straps holding it on.

“What? What’s the matter? What rat?”

“Did you see that? That damned thing almost ran me over!” The man stood, hands up in the air, glaring at the retreating animal.

“Oh! Well, it’s not a rat, is it? It’s a rabbit. And from what I saw, you weren’t paying much attention. You could’ve gotten out of its way.”

“Why do I have to get out of its way? It’s just a delivery animal. Don’t humans get any consideration anymore.”

“Hmmph, you’re such a specist! I’ve known you a long time and I think I can safely say that they’re almost as smart as you are. At least it can understand addresses and simple instructions. You don’t do so well at that.” She smiled, smug and satisfied with her dig. He’d been grumpy all evening.

“To hell with you too! Seriously, whoever thought it was a good idea to genetically engineer rabbits and squirrels to deliver fast food! Whatever happened to drones?” The man wiped off the imagined dust from the passing of the rabbit.

“Drones aren’t as cute I guess. It’s easier to talk back to a Rabbit Mod if you need to. And if you remembered your history you’d know that they used to use people to deliver food. See how well that worked out.”

Delivering fast food by human – early 21^st Century.

“Yeah, I remember my history, even if I’m not a fancy student like you! And what do you mean, ‘how well it worked out’? I’m sure it was a lot more civilized back then. I bet they didn’t go crashing into anyone.”

“I dunno, they’d even deliver on scooters and bikes. That took up a lot more space than a dog-sized rabbit with a backpack. And cars! They used cars too! That started even before they became driverless! Can you imagine the chaos and stink that created? Christ, they even used people pedaling cabs to move people around!”

Early 21^st century dichotomies – pedal taxis and gasoline powered food delivery

“Well, maybe, I don’t know. I just wish … I don’t know … maybe it would be good if people had a chance for a decent job like that. Can you imagine, getting a steady salary … benefits …” He trailed off, thinking about what other advantages a steady job gave.

“What do you know about benefits? Your Social Allowance isn’t enough? Your Medical Insurance isn’t enough? You could get some meds to calm you down!” She was starting to get worked up herself – what an ignorant know-nothing! What an idiot!

“Decent job? When have you ever had a job? Do you know what a boss is? Do you know what a deadline is? Do you know what an alarm clock is?”

“What’s an alarm clock?” He was curious in spite of his pique.

“Oh, forget it! If you’d only do something useful – study history or physics – instead of play games all day and drink all night!”

“Oh, well, yeah …, excuse me for trying to think of something better.”

She was starting to feel bad about getting angry with him. “Listen, sorry, it’s just that you’re so negative sometimes. Come on, you know I like you.” She smiled at him.

“Yeah, I do.” He was calmer now. “Come on, let’s go to my place and order a pizza.”

– End –

Newly discovered images from Yarema’s Sun

The star HC+13 232 A is better known as Yarema’s Sun. It is a yellow main-sequence star with a much smaller companion star orbiting it named Yaremka (“little Yarema” in Slavic languages). Though less than 100 light years from Earth, it has not been visited since Vyacheslav Yarema’s initial survey a century ago. All records of that trip were lost in the Johannesburg Digital Plague of 67 years ago. Thus, little was known of the system until a surprising transmission, from Yarema’s original mission, was accidently intercepted by the Lunar Farside Observatory recently. Only a few images, with some description, were recovered. But it was enough to learn that circling Yarema’s Sun, within its habitable zone, are twin planets, in the same orbit, revolving around each other. Both roughly the same mass as Venus, they can be considered to be moons of each other.

One planet, designated as Yarema a, has a thin atmosphere (possibly breathable) and no tectonic activity. Thus the surface has been eroded flat. Speculation is that this allows for a steady climatic gradient from equator to poles. The image below is a high aerial view – from 100 Km elevation – of the desiccated equatorial region. The apparent geomorphology is, of yet, unexplained.

In contrast is another aerial view below – again from 100 Km elevation – of the polar region showing endless tracts of snow plains. It’s not know whether the hummocky texture is due to underlying topography or simply snow drifts.

Only one image comes from the second planet, Yarema b. This image is, unlike the other two, from the atmospheric drone looking up. Planet Yarema b has a much thicker atmosphere, of unknown composition but of a very heterogeneous nature causing mottled and banded cloud structures. The atmosphere is still thin enough, or consists of low attenuation factor gases, that Yarema A, the main star, can be easily seen through those beautiful clouds.

Though fascinating from historical and astrophysical perspective, there is little interest in the system as a potential site for colonization or other commercial exploitation at this time. It will be some time before Yarema’s Sun will yield up its many secrets.