Saturday, February 4, 2006
New Story Up

Well all, I've posted my first story on sffworld, and I'd love to hear what you all think.

It's called "The Great Escape," and it is about a cyborg from a war-torn future, trying to escape its violent timeline by preventing the most momentous assassination of the twentieth century.

I've heard some comparisons to The Terminator, but I disagree with that enough to address it here. The Terminator didn't deal with real historical issues and people, and the cyborg as a character is completely different in my story. And the ending, well, I'll let you discover that for yourself.

That said, I hope everyone enjoys it!

Posted by Robert Williams 2006-02-04 19:17:10

Thursday, February 2, 2006
A Million Little Lies

James Frey has really done it. The author of the bestseller A Million Little Pieces had attained the Holy Grail of modern authors, by which I mean of course is the endorsement by Oprah Winfrey in her book club. Andwe all know how that turned out. Seems Mr. Frey invented or exaggerated a good many of the incidents in his book and the SmokingGun.com found him out, much to thedismay of the Almighty O.

Now I haven't read Frey's book and I don't watch Oprah, but I am reminded of a similar incident that came out a few years back, when some people had questioned the veracity of the book Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra. Also recently, some members of Augustin Burroughs's family have claimed the events in his memoir, Running With Scissors, are inaccurate. Similar accusations have been made of the novel Memoirs of a Geisha, which was supposedly based on the life of a real person.

Really, what the whole business reveals is one of the primary flaws in thepractices of biography, autobiography, and memoir. So much of life is subjective. God knows when my brother and sisters and I get together and start swapping memories, we each remember the same thing differently. It is that much harder for someone writing about another person, who has to rely on second- and third-hand news. Worse, some writers twist the facts to suit their own personal biases.I doubt there is a single book out there written about real people and events in which someone could not challenge some of the facts. James Frey simply put himself in a position where he could be called on it. Put this way, I think it is somewhat unfair for him to be so harshly criticized, especially in the publishing world where massive pressure is put on sales and verifying facts is secondary. He screwed up, but he really didn't do anything a million other little writers aren't doing too.

Posted by Robert Williams 2006-02-02 23:57:41

Monday, January 30, 2006
Going for Broke

It looks like the movie to beat this year at the Oscars is Brokeback Mountain. Defying all expectations, the film based upon E. Annie Proulx's short story has gathered tremendous critical acclaim and respectable box-office success, not to mention that it hasattracted the attention of legions creativity-challenged comediansdesperate for some material, any material. (Jay Leno, anyone?)

Jokes aside, the movie isincredibly good, and a lot of people hope it will change some minds and help fight homophobia.

Now, a genetic basis for homosexuality has been known for some time, going back to a study that showed a part of the brain called the hypothalamus has parts that are larger in straight men than it gay men. (I'm certain there is a joke there somewhere.)

Later researchers studied the genetic material from 40 pairs of gay brothers and found that in 33 of the pairs, the brothers had identical pieces of the end tip of the X chromosome, a region designated Xq28. This represents a 99.5% chance that there is a gene or genes in this area of the X chromosome that predisposes to at least one subtype of male homosexuality.

All of this was known before Brokeback, but did not gather much attention and probably won't be given as much credit for changing minds as the movie.A fictional story, if it is well done,can beat empirical facts hands down when it comes to changing minds. At the very least, people find it easier to relate to characters rather than listen to a lecture on genetics and brain anatomy.

Although I have my reservations about depending on a movie to bring about social change, seems rather like a house built on sand to me, one has to admit that this is a case of art gloriously fulfilling its purpose, to challenge our thinking and our hearts, and do a social good.

Posted by Robert Williams 2006-01-30 22:43:47

Sunday, January 22, 2006
I'm Back, Baby

As hard as it is to believe, I have not made a blog entry since last November. How did time fly by so quickly?

Well, after having celebrated the birth of the spiritual savior of all mankind with a non-stop orgy of materialism, I went out to ring in the new year by doing shots. Things getkind of blurry after that, and well here it is almost February. I seem to recall there was a giant ape and some gay cowboys in there somewhere, which is quite a coincidence since I hear there are also movies based on those subjects currently in theaters.

Anyway, in between my day job, my real job of writing and researching whatever scientific subjects catch my fancy that day, I of course do a lot of reading, because I believe in supporting my medium. So to start off 2006 I've decided to put out my current reading list, which is always changing but has some primary front-runners, and here they are:

Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire

Cell, by Stephen King

Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton,

Judas Unchained by Peter Hamilton (the sequel)

Left Horse Black, by S.J. Reisner (which I have partially started and looks very good. It will probably move to the top soon.)

The Mask of Apollo, by Mary Renault

The Sea and the Jungle, by H.M. Tomlinson

West of Eden, by Harry Harrison

The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke

Anyone else care to share?

Posted by Robert Williams 2006-01-22 23:17:20

Friday, November 25, 2005
The Price of Life

Pharmaceutical companies have takena new approach to treating disease in the last couple of years. They used to talk of cures. We heard of the "cure for the common cold" and the Holy Grail of medical research, the cure for cancer. But if you try to find researchers working on this problem now, you're not going to have much luck.In the 90s, there wasresearch into the p53 protein, which triggers cell death in defective cells. Thegene that creates this protein is defective is cancerous cells, so the idea was that gene therapy could be used to fix the defective p53 gene.The gene would start producing p53 protein, killing thecancerous cells and no more cancer. But while this kind of research is still being done, it is being taken in a new direction.

Most new cancer treatments now focus on finding a way to treat cancer as a chronic disease, something where you have to take drugs for the rest of your life to keep the cancer at bay. This certainly serves the best interests of pharmaceutical companies, since theywould have a steady incomefrom cancer patients who must take their drugs or die.

The same angle is taken in AIDS research. Efforts to search for a vaccine to the HIV virus have diminished, while there is constant flow of drugs that again, treat the disease as a chronic condition.

The ad campaigns for pharmaceutical companies tout their drugs as lifesavers, ways for terminally ill patients to live normal lives again... as long as they keep buying those drugs.

At what point does this become extortion? Don't we have a moral duty to put pressure on pharmaceutical companies to search for cures and vaccines, instead of ways to draw diseases out for as long as possible, so the patient must keep paying them off to stay alive?

Just some thoughts that keep me up at night.

Posted by Robert Williams 2005-11-25 21:43:19