"It Came From the Slush Pile!"
Mitch Wagner
submissions about vampires who got AIDS.
It's a logical idea: AIDS is a disease borne of the blood. Vampires drink
blood. AIDS is a disease which makes the strong weak, and kills them.
Vampires are strong. Therefore, wouldn't it be cool if you wrote a story
about a vampire that fed on an AIDS victim, and got the disease himself?
Editors said they got a glut of those stories.
So here's a question for the editors in this forum: Are those stories
still coming in?
What are the current top cliches of the slush pile? What's on top of the
sci-fi writer's zeitgeist? I imagine stories based on Sept. 11 are
starting to come in around now.
A couple of days after Sept. 11, I had this idea: Man is walking uptown
in Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11. He is in his late 30s. He is
wearing what was once a middlin'-nice suit--not a $1,000 suit, but not a
$150-off-the-rack-from-Sears suit either. Now, the suit is smoky and
sweat-stained and filthy, because he walked down 80 flights of stairs and
through the smoke and dust of the financial district while wearing that
suit. He's still a little bit dazed, which is why he's still walking
uptown. Slowly, as he processes what has happened, he realizes his wife
must be terrified for him, so he takes out his mobile phone to call her.
It's a flip-phone. He starts to dial--then snaps it shut, and drops it in
the gutter. He makes an abrupt left turn on a west-facing street, and
just keeps walking. He never contacted his wife and family again, and was
presumed dead in the World Trade Center.
I thought that was such a great idea, I just kept it to myself, because i
wasn't sure what happened to the man after he abandoned his old life. I
decided, after a while, that it turned out that his new life wasn't as
great as he thought it was. Maybe, like the passage in one of Raymond
Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels, he just settled down in a new city and
found a new job doing the same thing he was doing before, and met and
married a woman very similar to his old wife. Maybe he found out that
being a painter, or potter, or working on a horse ranch, wasn't as much
fun as he thought it would be. He eventually showed up, six months or a
year or two later, on his former family's doorstep. They all thought he
was a good husband and father, and was now dead. Complications ensue when
they learn that he had in fact abandoned them and faked his own death.
I found out later my wife had the same idea, and, still later, that LOTS
of writers had had the same idea. One writer dismissed the idea as
inevitable, and a little trite. I disagree with her--I think it has
poential.
But still, I bet editors are starting to see a lot of stories about
people who DIDN'T die in the WTC attacks.
--
Mitch Wagner weblog http://drive-thru.org
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> I found out later my wife had the same idea, and, still later, that LOTS
> of writers had had the same idea. One writer dismissed the idea as
> inevitable, and a little trite. I disagree with her--I think it has
> poential.
Well, Pirandello beat all of you to it with one of the great classics of
Italian literature, The Late Mattia Pascal.
(Pirandello was a little bit like Dick, and Mattia Pascal ends up, IIRC,
unsure of who and whether he is).
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
Gens una sumus
Mitch Wagner
says...
> Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> > I found out later my wife had the same idea, and, still later, that LOTS
> > of writers had had the same idea. One writer dismissed the idea as
> > inevitable, and a little trite. I disagree with her--I think it has
> > poential.
>
> Well, Pirandello beat all of you to it with one of the great classics of
> Italian literature, The Late Mattia Pascal.
>
Interesting. Since I'm unlikely to ever read that story, can you give me
a summary?
I'm not surprised that the idea I had proved to be original. I bet every
storyteller has had the very same idea when confronted by a highly
visible disaster.
The premise which I outlined at the top of this thread is, basically, the
story of
SPOILER WARNING
the movie "Titanic."
Mitch Wagner
mwa...@world.std.com says...
> In article <1f5wv82.1gdqtxc1l6v7r8N%ada...@tin.it>, ada...@tin.it
> says...
> > Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I found out later my wife had the same idea, and, still later, that LOTS
> > > of writers had had the same idea. One writer dismissed the idea as
> > > inevitable, and a little trite. I disagree with her--I think it has
> > > poential.
> >
> > Well, Pirandello beat all of you to it with one of the great classics of
> > Italian literature, The Late Mattia Pascal.
> >
>
> Interesting. Since I'm unlikely to ever read that story, can you give me
> a summary?
>
> I'm not surprised that the idea I had proved to be original. I bet every
> storyteller has had the very same idea when confronted by a highly
UNoriginal. I meant to say the idea was UNoriginal. Sorry.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> In article <1f5wv82.1gdqtxc1l6v7r8N%ada...@tin.it>, ada...@tin.it
> says...
> > Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I found out later my wife had the same idea, and, still later, that LOTS
> > > of writers had had the same idea. One writer dismissed the idea as
> > > inevitable, and a little trite. I disagree with her--I think it has
> > > poential.
> >
> > Well, Pirandello beat all of you to it with one of the great classics of
> > Italian literature, The Late Mattia Pascal.
> >
>
> Interesting. Since I'm unlikely to ever read that story, can you give me
> a summary?
Not right now, sorry... In another moment, I'd be happy to, but I'm too
overworked right now to go freshen up my memory. I think I read it -
it's practically mandatory - but I don't remember much of it besides the
bare bones of the tale. Pirandello, like Dick, is not really my cup of
tea. I think you can find something about it in google though, the
orignal title is "Il fu Mattia Pascal". It's, like, a classic. I'm not
sure what could be the American equivalent... Moby Dick? Huckleberry
Finn? That sort of importance.
Pirandello was Sicilian and my SO wouldn't forgive me for being so
ignorant about him... but, well...
Maybe Anna when she comes back will rememeber more...
WooF
On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Mitch Wagner wrote:
> Back around the 1980s, I'm told, magazines were getting a lot of
> submissions about vampires who got AIDS.
> So here's a question for the editors in this forum: Are those stories
> still coming in?
I don't think I saw more than one of the things.
Consider, though, that there are lots of other blood-carried
diseases that have been around for ages -- syphillis immediately
comes to mind. . . .
George Scithers of owls...@netaxs.com
Old Toby
>
> A couple of days after Sept. 11, I had this idea: Man is walking uptown
> in Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11. He is in his late 30s. He is
> wearing what was once a middlin'-nice suit--not a $1,000 suit, but not a
> $150-off-the-rack-from-Sears suit either. Now, the suit is smoky and
Ah, straight to the important details ;-)
> sweat-stained and filthy, because he walked down 80 flights of stairs and
> through the smoke and dust of the financial district while wearing that
> suit. He's still a little bit dazed, which is why he's still walking
> uptown. Slowly, as he processes what has happened, he realizes his wife
> must be terrified for him, so he takes out his mobile phone to call her.
> It's a flip-phone. He starts to dial--then snaps it shut, and drops it in
> the gutter. He makes an abrupt left turn on a west-facing street, and
> just keeps walking. He never contacted his wife and family again, and was
> presumed dead in the World Trade Center.
Big problem with this is that he's probably just chosen a life of
poverty. I mean, nowadays a man can be expected to be carrying, what,
300-500 dollars in his wallet, if he's just pulled cash out of the
ATM? That'll get you maybe a few bus tickets and a week in
a flophouse.
It's almost inevitable that the guy will succumb to the temptation to
use his credit card or pull money out of the bank, and if a missing
person's complaint has been filed for him this will be reported to his
family.
And if there's an easy and legal way for someone to make a decent life
for himself with 300 dollars and no history, please let me know...
So for this to really work, there needs to be some catch. Perhaps
he was offered some sort of secret job, or has contacts with some
unusual source of aid. Maybe he was carrying a suitcase full of
money or diamonds or something. Of course that would change the
nature of his decision, since these are presumably his employer's
assets, and he's chosen to steal them...
Of course it's not really SF, although it could easily be adapted.
Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net
Dan Goodman
says...
> Of course it's not really SF, although it could easily be adapted.
Possible twist -- he _is_ dead, and doesn't realize it.
Alternatively: The disaster was specifically aimed at him, made so
large-scale so the natives won't suspect it was intended for only one
person. The explosion has jogged his memory. He now realizes that he's
actually:
The rightful heir to the throne of Elfland
The wrongful heir to the throne of Hell
The gamemaster in charge of our "reality"
Wanted in an alternate universe for wearing the wrong kind of socks
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Heather Rose Jones
> Big problem with this is that he's probably just chosen a life of
> poverty. I mean, nowadays a man can be expected to be carrying, what,
> 300-500 dollars in his wallet, if he's just pulled cash out of the
> ATM? That'll get you maybe a few bus tickets and a week in
> a flophouse.
>
> It's almost inevitable that the guy will succumb to the temptation to
> use his credit card or pull money out of the bank, and if a missing
> person's complaint has been filed for him this will be reported to his
> family.
>
> And if there's an easy and legal way for someone to make a decent life
> for himself with 300 dollars and no history, please let me know...
Now _there's_ the beginning of the story for me. Did he realize the
logistical problems, or is there a point when he realizes, "Whoa, this
isn't quite what I signed on for"? Does he make the grade, or _does_ he
end up in a flop-house babbling about how he's really a high-powered
executive? Did he intend to change his line of work entirely or does he
end up having to dodge possible old acquaintances even if he moves
halfway across the continent? Does he ever find himself in a weak
moment dialing his old number and then hurriedly hanging up, leaving his
wife pressing a dial tone to her ear -- wondering and refusing to hope.
--
*********
Heather Rose Jones
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
*********
Peter Knutsen
Old Toby wrote:
> Big problem with this is that he's probably just chosen a life of
> poverty. I mean, nowadays a man can be expected to be carrying, what,
> 300-500 dollars in his wallet, if he's just pulled cash out of the
> ATM? That'll get you maybe a few bus tickets and a week in
> a flophouse.
>
> It's almost inevitable that the guy will succumb to the temptation to
> use his credit card or pull money out of the bank, and if a missing
> person's complaint has been filed for him this will be reported to his
> family.
He might have a checkbook, and write some checks and use them on
the first day. It's possible (but perhaps a bit unlikely) that the
police and relatives won't ask the recipients of the checks about
what time of the day they recieved them ("Was it before ot after
the impact?").
My own thoughts, during the days after the incident, dealt more
with a known criminal taking advantage of his known presence
in the complex, to fake his own death.
> Old Toby
--
Peter Knutsen
Brenda W. Clough
>
>
> What are the current top cliches of the slush pile? What's on top of the
> sci-fi writer's zeitgeist? I imagine stories based on Sept. 11 are
> starting to come in around now.
>
Along about the beginning of October I was reading an article or news story,
lamenting about all the screenplays that were even now being pounded out
beginning, "Setting: a glorious morning in mid-September...."
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Jim Hetley
<snipped>
> he was offered some sort of secret job, or has contacts with some
> unusual source of aid. Maybe he was carrying a suitcase full of
> money or diamonds or something. Of course that would change the
> nature of his decision, since these are presumably his employer's
> assets, and he's chosen to steal them...
>
Nah, he just needs to have stashed the ill-gotten gains of his insider
trading in a few Swiss accounts and wants to get away from a
sharper-than-a-serpent's-tooth wife and a Catholic marriage. The
original scenario probably _has_ been played out in real life. Throw
in a spaceport with a crashing worm-hole ship and you have SF.
Jim
Jaquandor
>would be incapable of writing about the actual events. It would have to be
>a fictional building/place, with major details changed. But I am curious if
>someone can pull it off with sensitivity.
I wrote one, and I'm not particularly keen on the results. I did submit it to
F&SF, though, a received my rejection in six days as usual. I wrote my story
because an idea came to me about a month after the attacks, and I *had* to
write it down. I'm really not sure the thing turned out worth a damn, though,
and I haven't yet decided whether I want to send it anywhere else.
--
-Jaquandor
"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music."
--George Carlin
Edward John Schoenfeld
> From: canis_...@excite.com (Jim Hetley)
> Organization: http://groups.google.com/
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.composition
> Date: 12 Jan 2002 19:19:48 -0800
> Subject: Re: "It Came From the Slush Pile!"
Why a Catholic marriage? Last I checked, divorce was a secular process.
There are quite a few divorced Catholics.
Ed
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
*Really* ticked off Sylvia's mirror.
Brian
Jim Hetley
Ones who take the Church doctrine seriously? Or whose wives do? Or
who want to _look_ like they do, to keep community face?
And I can't remember if Ireland allows civil divorce yet. Or Italy.
Plenty of foreign nationals "missing" in the base scenario.
Since I ain't writing the story, I don't _have_ to make it work.
Five-second brainstorm session items often need polishing afterwards.
Jim
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Ones who take the Church doctrine seriously? Or whose wives do? Or
> who want to _look_ like they do, to keep community face?
>
> And I can't remember if Ireland allows civil divorce yet. Or Italy.
Italy not only allows civil divorce, but when, in the far 1971, a
referendum was tried to abolish the divorce law, forcefully supported by
the Church, it was roundly defeated.
I don't know in America, but in Italy being Catholic is absolutely a
non-problem as far as divorce is concerned. _Plenty_ of thoroughly
Catholic people, including a couple of heads of Catholic parties, and
the very Chief of the Council of Ministers, who likes to boast of his
piety, are divorced (in the case of Berlusconi, IIRC he married his
current wife some time after the birth of their first daughter because
they had to wait for his divorce to become effective). And the Church
itself isn't too picky in declaring marriages annulled (despite repeated
cries of alarm from the upper echelons).
In any case, you can have divorce without consent from your spouse in
this country. It takes a bit longer, and it's a tad more expensive, but
not much. Harly anyone opposes a divorce, and when they do, it's because
they want to make life difficult for the other party, not because of
religion. There's absolutely no way you can force somebody to stay
married to you if they don't want. At worst you can make them wait a
little bit.
Ian McDowell
Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>I thought that was such a great idea, I just kept it to myself, because i
>wasn't sure what happened to the man after he abandoned his old life. I
>decided, after a while, that it turned out that his new life wasn't as
>great as he thought it was. Maybe, like the passage in one of Raymond
>Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels, he just settled down in a new city and
>found a new job doing the same thing he was doing before, and met and
>married a woman very similar to his old wife.
Hammett, not Chandler. Sam Spade has a speech about this in THE MALTESE
FALCON. It may be the only significant bit of the novel that's not in the
Huston film.
Edward John Schoenfeld
> From: canis_...@excite.com (Jim Hetley)
>
> Since I ain't writing the story, I don't _have_ to make it work.
> Five-second brainstorm session items often need polishing afterwards.
>
And now its shinier than it was before.
Ed
Patricia C. Wrede
canis_...@excite.com (Jim Hetley) writes:
>Edward John Schoenfeld <ejscho...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>> Why a Catholic marriage? Last I checked, divorce was a secular process.
>>
>> There are quite a few divorced Catholics.
>
>Ones who take the Church doctrine seriously? Or whose wives do?
Well, yes. Both I and my ex are cradle Catholics who take Church doctrine
*very* seriously, then and now. It isn't *divorce* that is doctrinally
prohibited (though a great many people are under the misapprehension that it
is); it's *remarriage* -- and if you've gotten an annulment, you can remarry
without any problem. In fact, we were informed during our annulment process
that at least half of the annulment hearings the Church tribunal hears in our
archdiocese are for divorced *non-Catholics* who wish to be remarried to a
Catholic.
Patricia C. Wrede
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Well, yes. Both I and my ex are cradle Catholics who take Church doctrine
> *very* seriously, then and now. It isn't *divorce* that is doctrinally
> prohibited (though a great many people are under the misapprehension that it
> is);
The marriage formula is certainly rather misleading in this.
Kevin
>What are the current top cliches of the slush pile?
Based on what I've been seeing in critters.org, I have a one-word
answer: clones.
Kevin
Ray
"Kevin" <ktn...@physics.utexas.edu> wrote in message
news:a1sfms$9cd$1...@linux3.ph.utexas.edu...
Hmmm... never thought of that.
Cloning has been explored quite thoroughly in SF. It is actually
"background stuff" in lots of stories. I shutter to think what kind of
stuff those who were suddenly captivated by this "new" technology came up
with.
Ray Drouillard
Dan Poirier
> Patricia C. Wrede <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, yes. Both I and my ex are cradle Catholics who take Church
> > doctrine *very* seriously, then and now. It isn't *divorce* that
> > is doctrinally prohibited (though a great many people are under
> > the misapprehension that it is);
>
> The marriage formula is certainly rather misleading in this.
The way it was explained to me in Catholic grade school, civil divorce
is simply not recognized by the church. A valid marriage is valid
until the death of one of the parties and the government has no
standing to change this.
So the Church couldn't care less if you get a civil divorce; as far
as they're concerned, you're still married unless it is established
via annulment that you never were in the first place.
--dan p.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
How do explain the fuss the kicked when Italy first introduce civil
divorce then?
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
Oh God, yes. Last crop of human rights shorts was _all_ about clones. I
hope and pray that this year's is different, because I'm among the first
readers this time around.
Mitch Wagner
> Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <1f5wv82.1gdqtxc1l6v7r8N%ada...@tin.it>, ada...@tin.it
> > says...
> > > Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I found out later my wife had the same idea, and, still later, that LOTS
> > > > of writers had had the same idea. One writer dismissed the idea as
> > > > inevitable, and a little trite. I disagree with her--I think it has
> > > > poential.
> > >
> > > Well, Pirandello beat all of you to it with one of the great classics of
> > > Italian literature, The Late Mattia Pascal.
> > >
> >
> > Interesting. Since I'm unlikely to ever read that story, can you give me
> > a summary?
>
> Not right now, sorry... In another moment, I'd be happy to, but I'm too
> overworked right now to go freshen up my memory.
No problem.
> I think I read it -
> it's practically mandatory - but I don't remember much of it besides the
> bare bones of the tale. Pirandello, like Dick, is not really my cup of
> tea. I think you can find something about it in google though, the
> orignal title is "Il fu Mattia Pascal". It's, like, a classic. I'm not
> sure what could be the American equivalent... Moby Dick? Huckleberry
> Finn? That sort of importance.
>
I'm not sure what you mean to say here.
If you asked 1,000 Americans what the most important American novels
were, half of them would say "Moby Dick" and the other half would say
"Huckleberry Finn."
Well, that's not true--three or four guys would say something by Piers
Anthony. But we don't like to talk about them.
Mitch Wagner
All very good points. I'm writing another story which calls for a man to
assume a completely new identity, and I'm wondering, is it even possible
to DO that in this day and age?
Can a man expect to get a job anymore if he has no references?
Mitch Wagner
evolvi...@home.com says...
> > It's almost inevitable that the guy will succumb to the temptation to
> > use his credit card or pull money out of the bank, and if a missing
> > person's complaint has been filed for him this will be reported to his
> > family.
> >
> > And if there's an easy and legal way for someone to make a decent life
> > for himself with 300 dollars and no history, please let me know...
>
> arrive...he has fake I.D., passport, birth certificate, etc., in a safety
> deposit box somewhere. He'd already have a bank account with a decent
> amount of money set up for this person.
>
> Publishing houses like Paladin and Loompanics have put out many books on how
> to do this sort of conniving thing. In the U.S. it's fairly simple to
> change one's identity.
>
> Perhaps he was going to leave his wife, kids, etc., at one point in time --
> but didn't go through with it at the time.
>
> > So for this to really work, there needs to be some catch. Perhaps
> > he was offered some sort of secret job, or has contacts with some
> > unusual source of aid. Maybe he was carrying a suitcase full of
> > money or diamonds or something. Of course that would change the
> > nature of his decision, since these are presumably his employer's
> > assets, and he's chosen to steal them..
>
> off the charities, etc., springing up for the benefit of the families of the
> deceased.
>
> Idea: he is one of the *terrorists*, and miraculously has survived. Of
> course his face is being shown in the papers, etc. So he is on the run. I
> don't think I'd read a story with such a protagonist ... unless I was
> tricked and not told of it until the end.
>
> In any case...I can see writing a story influenced by 9/11, but I personally
> would be incapable of writing about the actual events. It would have to be
> a fictional building/place, with major details changed. But I am curious if
> someone can pull it off with sensitivity.
This is a very interesting thread. I'm interested to see where it goes.
All of your ideas are, like, totally not my ideas.
To me, the interesting story was in the man's thoughts, and his personal
relationships, not in the process he used to establish the new identity.
I realize just now that this is a very personal story to me. Three or
four times in my adult life, I have attempted to entirely re-invent
myself. No, I didn't change my legal identity, but I changed the way I
looked, the way I acted, and the people I hung around with--I stopped
returning calls from old friends, and cultivated new ones.
Now, I'm trying to re-invent myself yet again, but do so in a more
rational and adult manner, without all the Gatsbyesque nonsense.
Mitch Wagner
ian...@mindspring.com says...
You're right. Thanks for the correction.
Mitch Wagner
ktn...@physics.utexas.edu says...
And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of different
directions. You can play it realistically, where the clones are simply
younger identical twins of the subject. Or you can play it for fantasy,
where the clone is actually a DUPLICATE of the original, who looks and
acts like the original and has all the original's memories. (Variant of
the second type of story: clone is an evil twin.)
Dorothy J Heydt
Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
[suggestions on how/why the character is fleeing]
>This is a very interesting thread. I'm interested to see where it goes.
>All of your ideas are, like, totally not my ideas.
>
>To me, the interesting story was in the man's thoughts, and his personal
>relationships, not in the process he used to establish the new identity.
This reminds me of a squib Sal Towse posted once, quoting someone
else who had been at some writers' conference attended by both
poets and fiction writers.
One of the poets mentioned how recently she had gotten a bat into
her house. All the fiction writers asked, "How did you get it
out?" and all the poets asked, "How did that make you feel?" and
the poet started describing how it made her feel, and one by one
the fiction writers got up and tiptoed away. They had wanted to
hear her define herself by what she did, not how she felt.
Maybe what you really want to write is a poem?
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Mitch Wagner
Don't think so. Never have. Never wanted to.
James Nicoll
Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <a1sfms$9cd$1...@linux3.ph.utexas.edu>,
>ktn...@physics.utexas.edu says...
>> In article <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
>> Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>
>> >What are the current top cliches of the slush pile?
>>
>> Based on what I've been seeing in critters.org, I have a one-word
>> answer: clones.
>
>And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of different
>directions. You can play it realistically, where the clones are simply
>younger identical twins of the subject. Or you can play it for fantasy,
>where the clone is actually a DUPLICATE of the original, who looks and
>acts like the original and has all the original's memories. (Variant of
>the second type of story: clone is an evil twin.)
Aside from _South Park_, has anyone used the obvious varient
on the Evil Twin, the Saintly Twin? Eg: take one Adolph, run him through
the Clonomatic Xerox(tm), then through the Moral Mirror and finally
set him free in 1930s Germany.
James Nicoll
--
"Don't worry. It's just a bunch of crazies who believe in only one
god. They're just this far away from atheism."
Wayne & Schuster
Mitch Wagner
I don't think so. I don't read any poetry and I don't think about writing
poetry much.
My point is that the people posting on this thread are talking about the
mechanics of how you create a new identity and hide yourself from the
people you used to know.
I am less interested in that than I am in how the character would decide
on where to live, what job he does, making new friends and possibly a new
family, how he feels about all this and--more importantly--how his
feelings change over time and what he does about it as the feelings
change.
I was sparked for this story idea by a thing that really happened to
someone (someone who happens to be a sf writer). His father abandoned the
family as a child, and then after a year or two or three, the father
returned.
I imagine the children in such a situation might grow up with a deep-
seated inability to trust anyone they love.
To me, the more interesting part of the story might be: what happens when
the father comes back?
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> I'm not sure what you mean to say here.
>
> If you asked 1,000 Americans what the most important American novels
> were, half of them would say "Moby Dick" and the other half would say
> "Huckleberry Finn."
Well, there's a good chance that if you ask anybody in the last year of
high school what the most important Italian novel ever was, half of them
would say "I promessi sposi", and the other half "Il fu Mattia Pascal".
It's really a very well-known work... and a lot more enjoyable than the
Promessi sposi. :-)
I seem to remember that Pirandello won the Nobel, but I'm not totally
certain.
> Well, that's not true--three or four guys would say something by Piers
> Anthony. But we don't like to talk about them.
:-))
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> In article <a1sfms$9cd$1...@linux3.ph.utexas.edu>,
> ktn...@physics.utexas.edu says...
> > In article <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
> > Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> > >What are the current top cliches of the slush pile?
> >
> > Based on what I've been seeing in critters.org, I have a one-word
> > answer: clones.
>
> And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of different
> directions.
Two words: organ transplants.
Our writers seemed to think that those two words pretty much summed up
any human right issue they could concieve of. Pretty sad, really. (We
had a kidney transplanted on our staff, and the kind of stories that
kept coming in, and in, and in, put us in a real uncomfortable and
painful position. One of them, for complicate reasons, ended up _second_
last year, to our horror).
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> All very good points. I'm writing another story which calls for a man to
> assume a completely new identity, and I'm wondering, is it even possible
> to DO that in this day and age?
>
> Can a man expect to get a job anymore if he has no references?
Humble works, I'd say yes. Lots of illegal immigrants do it, don't they?
Or he might go abroad - not difficult to pass the border going _out_ of
the States, is it? And for a foreigner papers are easier to forge.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> To me, the interesting story was in the man's thoughts, and his personal
> relationships, not in the process he used to establish the new identity.
You really should check on "The Late Mattia Pascal", whose theme is more
or less this. Well, he was concerned most of all with the relationship
between the individual and society, and how perception, delusions, masks
and folly contribute to make up or negate one's self... It's been
translated, though it's out of print:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870523775//ref=sr_1_8_1/104-6423
896-6567906
It won't spoil any idea you have - Pirandello's story is quite personal
- but might give you ideas to offset yours. And by all accounts, it's an
entertaining book.
Ray
"Mitch Wagner" <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote
> <Gpw9q...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com says...
<snip>
> > Maybe what you really want to write is a poem?
>
> Don't think so. Never have. Never wanted to.
Don't be so sure. I never wanted to write a poem, but I ended up writing
two of them a couple of years ago. I probably won't end up writing any
more.
Maybe I ought to send them of somewhere just to see if I can get them
published. Stranger things have happened. Who knows? I might even make
enough money to pay for the postage.
Ray Drouillard
Dorothy J Heydt
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@tin.it> wrote:
>>
>> And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of different
>> directions.
>
>Two words: organ transplants.
>
>Our writers seemed to think that those two words pretty much summed up
>any human right issue they could concieve of. Pretty sad, really. (We
>had a kidney transplanted on our staff, and the kind of stories that
>kept coming in, and in, and in, put us in a real uncomfortable and
>painful position. One of them, for complicate reasons, ended up _second_
>last year, to our horror).
Bujold has pretty much covered that topic anyway, hasn't she,
with Mark's little horror story about the guy he knew on
Jackson's Hole?
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> In article <1f5yzf1.bq276cszdnnkN%ada...@tin.it>,
> Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@tin.it> wrote:
> >>
> >> And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of different
> >> directions.
> >
> >Two words: organ transplants.
> >
> >Our writers seemed to think that those two words pretty much summed up
> >any human right issue they could concieve of. Pretty sad, really. (We
> >had a kidney transplanted on our staff, and the kind of stories that
> >kept coming in, and in, and in, put us in a real uncomfortable and
> >painful position. One of them, for complicate reasons, ended up _second_
> >last year, to our horror).
>
> Bujold has pretty much covered that topic anyway, hasn't she,
> with Mark's little horror story about the guy he knew on
> Jackson's Hole?
Well, Bujold isn't published around here any longer, but anyway, did the
fact that some good writer has done it already and very well ever
discourage the average slushpile writer?
Dan Goodman
Droui...@home.com says...
> Cloning has been explored quite thoroughly in SF. It is actually
> "background stuff" in lots of stories. I shutter to think what kind of
> stuff those who were suddenly captivated by this "new" technology came up
> with.
Actually, clones can be found at your nearest McDonalds or equivalent --
usually frenchfried.
Cloning humans has been used in sf at least since the 1930's.
A rule of thumb -- any wonderful new mind-toy or technology was first
used in sf at least twenty years before one thinks it possibly could have
been used.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Dan Goodman
mwa...@world.std.com says...
> I'm writing another story which calls for a man to
> assume a completely new identity, and I'm wondering, is it even possible
> to DO that in this day and age?
Yes, it's possible. Done all the time by governments, even -- the Witness
Protection Program. If there's a specialist mystery bookstore in your
area, they'll likely have at least one book for writers explaining how
it's done and how not to do it.
> Can a man expect to get a job anymore if he has no references?
Yes, though not a good one. Temporary agencies don't demand impeccable
references.
And it's quite possible to fake references. Some companies and some
colleges don't bother to check references.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Dan Poirier
> Dan Poirier <poi...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > The way it was explained to me in Catholic grade school, civil divorce
> > is simply not recognized by the church. A valid marriage is valid
> > until the death of one of the parties and the government has no
> > standing to change this.
> >
> > So the Church couldn't care less if you get a civil divorce; as far
> > as they're concerned, you're still married unless it is established
> > via annulment that you never were in the first place.
>
> How do explain the fuss the kicked when Italy first introduce civil
> divorce then?
I'm not aware of that history, but it seems consistent. If the Church
does not believe the government can have the power to dissolve a
marriage, then shouldn't it raise a fuss if the government starts
claiming such power?
Marilee J. Layman
<evolvi...@home.com> wrote:
>Another idea: he sneaks home and, in cahoots with his wife, decides to rip
>off the charities, etc., springing up for the benefit of the families of the
>deceased.
This happened, both were arrested.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
Chris Barwick
> Aside from _South Park_, has anyone used the obvious varient
> on the Evil Twin, the Saintly Twin? Eg: take one Adolph, run him through
> the Clonomatic Xerox(tm), then through the Moral Mirror and finally
> set him free in 1930s Germany.
Does "Calvin and Hobbes" count?
--
Chris Barwick
John F. Eldredge
Hash: SHA1
On 13 Jan 2002 14:56:47 GMT, ian...@mindspring.com (Ian McDowell)
wrote:
>In article <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
>Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>I thought that was such a great idea, I just kept it to myself,
>>because i wasn't sure what happened to the man after he abandoned
>>his old life. I decided, after a while, that it turned out that
>>his new life wasn't as great as he thought it was. Maybe, like the
>>passage in one of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels, he
>>just settled down in a new city and found a new job doing the same
>>thing he was doing before, and met and married a woman very
>>similar to his old wife.
>
>Hammett, not Chandler. Sam Spade has a speech about this in THE
>MALTESE FALCON. It may be the only significant bit of the novel
>that's not in the Huston film.
If he stays in the same profession, or even the same industry, and
has a job that involves contact with other people in different
companies in the same industry, there is a good chance that he will
eventually run into someone who knew him in his "previous life".
Whether or not he will be recognized at that point depends on both
how much his appearance has changed, and whether or not he has any
distinctive mannerisms.
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--
John F. Eldredge -- eldr...@earthlink.net, eldr...@poboxes.com
PGP key available from http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371
"There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power;
not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace."
Woodrow Wilson
John F. Eldredge
Hash: SHA1
On 13 Jan 2002 16:12:52 -0500, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
wrote:
>In article <MPG.16ab8fe3a...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
>Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>In article <a1sfms$9cd$1...@linux3.ph.utexas.edu>,
>>ktn...@physics.utexas.edu says...
>>> In article
>>> <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>, Mitch
>>> Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >What are the current top cliches of the slush pile?
>>>
>>> Based on what I've been seeing in critters.org, I have a
>>> one-word answer: clones.
>>
>>And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of
>>different directions. You can play it realistically, where the
>>clones are simply younger identical twins of the subject. Or you
>>can play it for fantasy, where the clone is actually a DUPLICATE
>>of the original, who looks and acts like the original and has all
>>the original's memories. (Variant of the second type of story:
>>clone is an evil twin.)
>
> Aside from _South Park_, has anyone used the obvious varient
>on the Evil Twin, the Saintly Twin? Eg: take one Adolph, run him
>through the Clonomatic Xerox(tm), then through the Moral Mirror and
>finally set him free in 1930s Germany.
This comes very close to the plot of Charlie Chaplin's film _The
Great Dictator_. He plays both a (slightly-renamed) Hitler and a
Jewish barber who gets mistaken for the dictator. In my opinion,
this film is one of the funniest political satires ever made.
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Sylvia Li
>
> On Sat, 12 Jan 2002 18:34:24 -0600, Dan Goodman <dsg...@visi.com>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <3C40C458...@mindspring.com>, plai...@mindspring.com
> >says...
>
> >Possible twist -- he _is_ dead, and doesn't realize it.
>
> >Alternatively: The disaster was specifically aimed at him, made so
> >large-scale so the natives won't suspect it was intended for only one
> >person. The explosion has jogged his memory. He now realizes that he's
> >actually:
>
> >The rightful heir to the throne of Elfland
> >The wrongful heir to the throne of Hell
> >The gamemaster in charge of our "reality"
> >Wanted in an alternate universe for wearing the wrong kind of socks
>
> *Really* ticked off Sylvia's mirror.
>
> Brian
(*snrch*)
Oh lord, now you've done it. (Down, down boy! Down, I say!)
--
Sylvia Li
Jim Hetley
> In article <ebb4798f.02011...@posting.google.com>,
> canis_...@excite.com (Jim Hetley) writes:
>
> >Edward John Schoenfeld <ejscho...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>
> >> Why a Catholic marriage? Last I checked, divorce was a secular process.
> >>
> >> There are quite a few divorced Catholics.
> >
> >Ones who take the Church doctrine seriously? Or whose wives do?
>
> Well, yes. Both I and my ex are cradle Catholics who take Church doctrine
> *very* seriously, then and now. It isn't *divorce* that is doctrinally
> prohibited (though a great many people are under the misapprehension that it
> is); it's *remarriage* -- and if you've gotten an annulment, you can remarry
> without any problem. In fact, we were informed during our annulment process
> that at least half of the annulment hearings the Church tribunal hears in our
> archdiocese are for divorced *non-Catholics* who wish to be remarried to a
> Catholic.
>
> Patricia C. Wrede
Okay, for purposes of this hypothetical hypercube, what if we toss a
child or two into the mix? I'm shaky on the doctrine, being raised
Presbyterian and all, but I didn't think you could get a marriage
annulled if there were children. Unless you happen to be a king, of
course.
Jim
(OTOH, if this is treading on too many toes, we can figure out another
reason for the dastardly critter to need to escape from his
entanglements. The suggestion of a briefcase full of somebody else's
bearer bonds sounds good....)
(Brainstorming somebody else's story is easier than writing my own.)
Miche Doherty
> And I can't remember if Ireland allows civil divorce yet.
Yes, there was a narrow victory in a referendum a few years back.
Miche.
--
I'm on a whiskey diet. I've lost three days already. [Tommy Cooper]
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> Okay, for purposes of this hypothetical hypercube, what if we toss a
> child or two into the mix? I'm shaky on the doctrine, being raised
> Presbyterian and all, but I didn't think you could get a marriage
> annulled if there were children. Unless you happen to be a king, of
> course.
Actually, I seem to recall seeing someone mention both that you could
get the marriage anulled _and_ that the children are legitimate even if
so.
Which just goes to show that reality often picks the weirdest of all
possible options.
--
Heather Anne Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
Just a world that we all must share, it's not enough just to stand and
stare: Is it only a dream that there'll be no more turning away?
--Pink Floyd, "On the Turning Away"
Patricia C. Wrede
>Okay, for purposes of this hypothetical hypercube, what if we toss a
>child or two into the mix? I'm shaky on the doctrine, being raised
>Presbyterian and all, but I didn't think you could get a marriage
>annulled if there were children.
Yes, you can. Infertility used to be one of the standard grounds for annulment
(and therefore, demonstrating fertility by having children meant you couldn't
use it as grounds), but it isn't the only one by any means, and it isn't
sufficient grounds for an annulment any more. It's been a while; I forget what
all three of the three requirements are, but failure of any *one* of them is
enough to justify an annulment (and as I said, infertility isn't one of them,
nor is demonstrated fertility grounds for maintaining a marriage in the face of
a failure of one of the three required elements). The rules may have been
stricter or looser at various times -- in fact, given what I know of Church
history, they've almost certainly varied widely -- but that's how it works
today.
The existence of children does not prevent an annulment, nor does giving an
annulment illegitimize the children in the eyes of the Church. (In the eyes of
the state, a church annulment is utterly irrelevant to anything. Oh, and at
least in my archdiocese, you can't get an annulment without *first* having
gotten a civil divorce.) The distinction, as it was explained to me during the
process, is that the church recognizes that there was a civil marriage
involved, but not a sacramental one, and it's the civil marriage that makes
children legitimate, and the sacremental marriage that's indissoluable. If you
want a detailed explanation of whatever theological hairsplitting is involved
in this decision, ask a theologian. I'm just a divorced-and-annulled Catholic
who hasn't bothered to waste brain cells remembering specifics that have no
further relevance to my life at this point, and that I can look up in the
extremely unlikely event that I ever need them for a book.
Patricia C. Wrede
Mitch Wagner
> Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <a1sfms$9cd$1...@linux3.ph.utexas.edu>,
> > ktn...@physics.utexas.edu says...
> > > In article <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
> > > Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > >What are the current top cliches of the slush pile?
> > >
> > > Based on what I've been seeing in critters.org, I have a one-word
> > > answer: clones.
> >
> > And what about 'em? Stories about clones can go in a lot of different
> > directions.
>
> Two words: organ transplants.
>
> Our writers seemed to think that those two words pretty much summed up
> any human right issue they could concieve of.
What about organ transplants? The clones are sentient, and then they're
harvested for organs?
Mitch Wagner
> Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> > To me, the interesting story was in the man's thoughts, and his personal
> > relationships, not in the process he used to establish the new identity.
>
> You really should check on "The Late Mattia Pascal", whose theme is more
> or less this. Well, he was concerned most of all with the relationship
> between the individual and society, and how perception, delusions, masks
> and folly contribute to make up or negate one's self... It's been
> translated, though it's out of print:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870523775//ref=sr_1_8_1/104-6423
> 896-6567906
>
> It won't spoil any idea you have - Pirandello's story is quite personal
> - but might give you ideas to offset yours. And by all accounts, it's an
> entertaining book.
Thanks. I'll look for it.
Mitch Wagner
eldr...@earthlink.net says...
> This comes very close to the plot of Charlie Chaplin's film _The
> Great Dictator_. He plays both a (slightly-renamed) Hitler and a
> Jewish barber who gets mistaken for the dictator. In my opinion,
> this film is one of the funniest political satires ever made.
I pretty much agree with you about "The Great Dictator," except for the
part where I think it's severely dated and pretty much unwatchable for a
modern audience. :)
David Langford
>On 12 Jan 2002 19:19:48 -0800, canis_...@excite.com (Jim Hetley)
>wrote:
>
>>Nah, he just needs to have stashed the ill-gotten gains of his insider
>>trading in a few Swiss accounts and wants to get away from a
>>sharper-than-a-serpent's-tooth wife and a Catholic marriage. The
>>original scenario probably _has_ been played out in real life.
>
>Certainly has.
>
>In 1999 there was a rail crash in the UK that killed thirty-one people.
>There was a very bad fire after the crash, and there were serious
>problems with identifying the number of dead, let alone their
>identities. A passenger on the train phoned the police after the crash
>posing as his supervisor, reported himself as missing, and then started
>a new life (to get away from his previous record as a sex offender, if I
>remember correctly).
Which in turn reminds me that the scenario is a venerable one in theatre --
it's the central plot device of Henry Arthur Jones's 1882 melodrama =The
Silver King=. The hero, framed for murder and on the run, tries to throw
off pursuit by jumping from a train, and the train soon afterwards crashes
with many killed in the resulting fire. Being thought dead, our man has a
free hand to make his fortune and put everything right....
Dave
--
David Langford
ans...@cix.co.uk | http://www.ansible.co.uk/
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Okay, for purposes of this hypothetical hypercube, what if we toss a
> child or two into the mix? I'm shaky on the doctrine, being raised
> Presbyterian and all, but I didn't think you could get a marriage
> annulled if there were children. Unless you happen to be a king, of
> course.
You can. There are several ways, and it happens all the time.
You annull a marriage when you want to re-marry in church, or if you
want to get out of alimony. In Italy, religious and civil marriages are
linked, so that an annullment has effect on the civil marriage too - but
not in the sense that it terminates it, the effect is to retroactively
eliminate its existence. And so, no alimony is due. Nice, eh?
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> > Two words: organ transplants.
> >
> > Our writers seemed to think that those two words pretty much summed up
> > any human right issue they could concieve of.
>
> What about organ transplants? The clones are sentient, and then they're
> harvested for organs?
Yes, endless variations of the same theme. Cloning, you see, is BAD. In
fact, all of bioengeneering, and come to think of it, most of science
itself, is BAD. That's what one writes SF to say, in this country.
Of the six stories that were on the shortlist, one was about Evil
Scientists cloning babies from Polititician to rip their organs off; one
was about Evil Scientists cloning whole bodies to transplant the
client's brain in (genetically completely unrelated to the eventual
brain they were to host, to show how much scientific credibility is an
issue here); and another was about Evil Aliens who get their kicks out
of ripping parts of bodies out of their human victims and stitching them
on their own - because, get this, this way they get to savor endlessly
the pain of the person the organ was originally ripped out of.
Of the three remaining stories, one was about Rwanda, but unfortunately
wasn't a very good story; one was about storing dissidents in vats in an
ex-Soviet republic (my favourite) and another was about biological
modifications that ended up in social stigma but not having bits and
pieces ripped off and stiched on somebody else, and that ended up as the
winner.
Jaana Heino
> Based on what I've been seeing in critters.org, I have a one-word
> answer: clones.
Really? That's too bad... I've got one clone story making the rounds,
and another growing in my mind. Though the second one would work better
with *copying* people, not cloning, but then the possibility of just
copying stuff would have all kinds of implications on the society etc
and I cannot get them all worked out properly. Hmph. Maybe I'll start
growing something else for the current short.
--
Jaana Heino "Power corrupts, but we
ja...@iki.fi still need electricity."
Jo Walton
> This reminds me of a squib Sal Towse posted once, quoting someone
> else who had been at some writers' conference attended by both
> poets and fiction writers.
>
> One of the poets mentioned how recently she had gotten a bat into
> her house. All the fiction writers asked, "How did you get it
> out?" and all the poets asked, "How did that make you feel?" and
> the poet started describing how it made her feel, and one by one
> the fiction writers got up and tiptoed away. They had wanted to
> hear her define herself by what she did, not how she felt.
>
> Maybe what you really want to write is a poem?
I think that's a very narrow view of poetry.
But then I am still half drunk on Mike Ford's long, wonderful "Dark Sea",
an epic poem about blind Homer going on the first trip to Mars, which is
full of doing, as well as feeling, as good novels are full of feeling as
well as doing.
--
Jo J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
I kissed a kif at Kefk
*THE KING'S NAME* out now from Tor!
Sample Chapters, Map, Poems, & stuff at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
jhetley
news:20020114002349...@mb-cj.aol.com...
> In article <ebb4798f.02011...@posting.google.com>,
> canis_...@excite.com (Jim Hetley) writes:
>
> >Okay, for purposes of this hypothetical hypercube, what if we toss a
> >child or two into the mix? I'm shaky on the doctrine, being raised
> >Presbyterian and all, but I didn't think you could get a marriage
> >annulled if there were children.
>
> Yes, you can. Infertility used to be one of the standard grounds for
annulment
> (and therefore, demonstrating fertility by having children meant you
couldn't
> use it as grounds), but it isn't the only one by any means, and it isn't
> sufficient grounds for an annulment any more. It's been a while; I forget
what
> all three of the three requirements are, but failure of any *one* of them
is
> enough to justify an annulment (and as I said, infertility isn't one of
them,
> nor is demonstrated fertility grounds for maintaining a marriage in the
face of
> a failure of one of the three required elements). The rules may have been
> stricter or looser at various times -- in fact, given what I know of
Church
> history, they've almost certainly varied widely -- but that's how it works
> today.
Learn something new every day. Thanks. I think the Rules may have changed
since my comparative religion class -- if nothing else, they said Mass in
Latin 'way back then....<G>
--
Jim
THE SUMMER COUNTRY, a novel of dark contemporary fantasy
Coming in 2002 from Ace Science Fiction & Fantasy
Dan Goodman
mwa...@world.std.com says...
> What about organ transplants? The clones are sentient, and then they're
> harvested for organs?
Done decades ago, of course.
And economically silly. It's much cheaper to grow the specific organ for
replacement.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet
>In article <Gpw9q...@kithrup.com> djh...@kithrup.com "Dorothy J Heydt" writes:
>> This reminds me of a squib Sal Towse posted once, quoting someone
>> else who had been at some writers' conference attended by both
>> poets and fiction writers.
>>
>> One of the poets mentioned how recently she had gotten a bat into
>> her house. All the fiction writers asked, "How did you get it
>> out?" and all the poets asked, "How did that make you feel?" and
>> the poet started describing how it made her feel, and one by one
>> the fiction writers got up and tiptoed away. They had wanted to
>> hear her define herself by what she did, not how she felt.
>>
>> Maybe what you really want to write is a poem?
>I think that's a very narrow view of poetry.
It's not a very useful view of fiction, either.
>But then I am still half drunk on Mike Ford's long, wonderful "Dark Sea",
>an epic poem about blind Homer going on the first trip to Mars, which is
>full of doing, as well as feeling, as good novels are full of feeling as
>well as doing.
Oh yes.
--
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pd...@demesne.com)
"I will open my heart to a blank page
and interview the witnesses." John M. Ford, "Shared World"
Wilson Heydt
WooF <owls...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>
>
>On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Mitch Wagner wrote:
>
>> Back around the 1980s, I'm told, magazines were getting a lot of
>> submissions about vampires who got AIDS.
>
>> So here's a question for the editors in this forum: Are those stories
>> still coming in?
>
>I don't think I saw more than one of the things.
>
>Consider, though, that there are lots of other blood-carried
>diseases that have been around for ages -- syphillis immediately
>comes to mind. . . .
Which means there's probably a story in a vampire who *thinks* he's
gotten AIDS, but he's really contracted syphillis...
--
Hal Heydt
Albany, CA
My dime, my opinions.
Wilson Heydt
Patricia C. Wrede <pwred...@aol.com> wrote:
>The distinction, as it was explained to me during the
>process, is that the church recognizes that there was a civil marriage
>involved, but not a sacramental one, and it's the civil marriage that makes
>children legitimate, and the sacremental marriage that's indissoluable. If you
>want a detailed explanation of whatever theological hairsplitting is involved
>in this decision, ask a theologian.
I don't think a theologian would be needed so much as a lawyer
versed in both civil and canon law. Looks to me like the Church has
simply recognized that the state isn't going to do things the way
the Church would like and is making the best it can of the results
by tacitly recognizing that marriage in the US is actually a civil
contract.
Wilson Heydt
Ray <Droui...@home.com> wrote:
>
>"Kevin" <ktn...@physics.utexas.edu> wrote in message
>news:a1sfms$9cd$1...@linux3.ph.utexas.edu...
>> In article <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
>> Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>
>> >What are the current top cliches of the slush pile?
>>
>
>Cloning has been explored quite thoroughly in SF. It is actually
>"background stuff" in lots of stories. I shutter to think what kind of
>stuff those who were suddenly captivated by this "new" technology came up
>with.
At least you get the picture.....
Mitch Wagner
> Evil Aliens who get their kicks out
> of ripping parts of bodies out of their human victims and stitching them
> on their own ...
Hey, it makes a fashion statement.
Mitch Wagner
says...
Or do as Robert A. Heinlein speculated on in "Time Enough for Love," have
brainless clone bodies grown in vats.
That in and of itself is ethically questionable, but it doesn't make for
fiction with as many primary colors as if the clones are sentient.
We see a low-tech form of the sentient-clones-grown-for-organ-transplants
today: I've read that parents with a sick child will sometimes have a
second child in the hopes of getting a match for a rare blood type or
organ donor. "E.R." did a brief storyline on that.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> We see a low-tech form of the sentient-clones-grown-for-organ-transplants
> today: I've read that parents with a sick child will sometimes have a
> second child in the hopes of getting a match for a rare blood type or
> organ donor. "E.R." did a brief storyline on that.
It's routinely done for children with leukemia, IIRC. Marrow taken from
a sibling is apparently the one most likely to help. I hear there are
lots of psychological problems involved. But also a lot of live kids as
a result.
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
Dan) wrote:
>Of the six stories that were on the shortlist, one was about Evil
>Scientists cloning babies from Polititician to rip their organs off; one
Ew. Ew. Ewwwww. Have those people never read _Spare Parts_?
>was about Evil Scientists cloning whole bodies to transplant the
>client's brain in (genetically completely unrelated to the eventual
>brain they were to host, to show how much scientific credibility is an
Ew. Ew. They never read Bujold?
>issue here); and another was about Evil Aliens who get their kicks out
>of ripping parts of bodies out of their human victims and stitching them
>on their own - because, get this, this way they get to savor endlessly
>the pain of the person the organ was originally ripped out of.
Ew. X-Files.
Ask me why did I withdraw from the SFera Award jury. :-) And we're
talking about published stories here.
BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
can be cloned. Am I wrong?
vlatko
--
_Neither Fish Nor Fowl_
http://www.webart.hr/nrnm/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
<MPG.16ab8ef37...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
mwa...@world.std.com (Mitch Wagner) wrote:
[...]
> I realize just now that this is a very personal story to
>me. Three or four times in my adult life, I have attempted
>to entirely re-invent myself.
You mean you have to try? That just happens to me
*whatever.*
But, re the story: if that's the part of it that interests
you, that's the part you should concentrate on. The
pragmatic details are going to be half a sentence here and
there, for you, and this will irritate your readers who'd
like to know more of the mechanics of it - but they're not
your audience anyhow.
It won't hurt to read up the research, but I suspect this is
another of those cases where you can usefully do the research
after the first draft.
Mary
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
<MPG.16ace5dc9...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>,
mwa...@world.std.com (Mitch Wagner) wrote:
[...]
> We see a low-tech form of the
> sentient-clones-grown-for-organ-transplants today: I've
>read that
> parents with a sick child will sometimes have a second
>child in the
> hopes of getting a match for a rare blood type or organ
>donor.
There have been several of those stories that I've read over
the last couple of years.
Presumably someone's done the story of those same children
when they reach an age to think about this? Somebody _must_
have?
Mary
BrainsAkimbo
> In article <MPG.16aa151ac...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>, Mitch
> Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >wasn't sure what happened to the man after he abandoned his old life. I
> >decided, after a while, that it turned out that his new life wasn't as
> >great as he thought it was. Maybe, like the passage in one of Raymond
> >Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels, he just settled down in a new city and
> >found a new job doing the same thing he was doing before, and met and
> >married a woman very similar to his old wife.
>
> Hammett, not Chandler. Sam Spade has a speech about this in THE MALTESE
> FALCON. It may be the only significant bit of the novel that's not in the
> Huston film.
"Wakefield," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, anybody?
-- BA?
John McMullen
> Yes, endless variations of the same theme. Cloning, you see, is BAD. In
> fact, all of bioengeneering, and come to think of it, most of science
> itself, is BAD. That's what one writes SF to say, in this country.
Well, of course it's bad. Think about it for a moment.
Bioengineering becomes incredibly cheap and able to be dispensed
from a vending machine. Suddenly high school kids are changing
morphologies according to the latest fad, and cliques in North
American high schools switch from their current states (see other
threads) to being Barbies and Gargoyles, with half of them going for
the ideal body and half going for the most repulsive body, in a Kewl
way. Principals have to enact rules about bodily weaponry ("Nails longer
than two inches are considered talons and are forbidden!") Like body-builders,
the Barbies' dieas of what is ideal keep getting more extreme.
Out in what we laughingly call the real world, adults begin with minor
modifications, generally in areas related to secondary sexual
characteristics. Some decide to get bigger brains and braincases,
re-enacting certain 1930s stories (and the tale of the Irish elk)
without ever having heard the originals.
Eventually, depending on the author and the magazine:
- it's revealed that all of these modifications render one incapable
of breeding with anyone who has also had modifications, and it was
all A Clever Plan to relieve the world of its excess human population.
- next we concentrate on the tiny number of non-modified people who
are now required for perpetuating the human race. Some of the Barbies
and Gargoyles are hunting them for breeding stock.
- meanwhile, certain brave normals are fighting The Good Fight over in
another author's story.
- finally, in another author's tale, a scientist figures out how to
apply modifications that will fight the modifications, but only
untrammeled sexual intercourse will save us now.
Ahem.
I seem to have gotten off on a tangent.
Sorry.
Have a good night, everyone.
John
Ian A. York
Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>
>BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
>can be cloned. Am I wrong?
I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
or a liver.
Ian
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Matthew Cline
imparted unto us these blasphemous ravings:
> Out in what we laughingly call the real world, adults begin with minor
> modifications, generally in areas related to secondary sexual
> characteristics. Some decide to get bigger brains and braincases,
> re-enacting certain 1930s stories (and the tale of the Irish elk)
> without ever having heard the originals.
I did a Google search on Irish Elk, but didn't find anything that would fit
in with that paragraph. Did their antlers get so big that their necks
couldn't support the weight of their head? Or are you saying the modified
humans with large brains would have heads so large they wouldn't be able to
fit through doors and such?
Ian A. York
Matthew Cline <ma...@nightrealms.com> wrote:
>
>I did a Google search on Irish Elk, but didn't find anything that would fit
>in with that paragraph. Did their antlers get so big that their necks
>couldn't support the weight of their head? Or are you saying the modified
Irish Elk are extinct; they had huge antlers. If correlation was
causation, then having huge antlers would have caused their extinction.
Since for most people correlation *is* causation, it's widely believed
that Irish Elk are extinct because they had huge antlers. And of course,
that must be true, because of course everything that has gone extinct has
had huge antlers, hasn't it.
Matthew Cline
> The distinction, as it was explained to me during the process, is
> that the church recognizes that there was a civil marriage involved,
> but not a sacramental one, and it's the civil marriage that makes
> children legitimate, and the sacremental marriage that's
> indissoluable.
Does the Catholic Church care about the legitimaticy, or lack therofe,
of children?
Shaad M. Ahmad
>>BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
>>can be cloned. Am I wrong?
>
>I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
>organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
>or a liver.
Not yet, anyway, wouldn't you say, Ian? I mean part of the focus in
developmental biology is trying to understand the diverse regulatory
networks that work together to give rise to distinct organs and the
organisms.
So, arguably we could, eventually, create an organ in vitro.
- Shaad
Ray
"Ian A. York" <iay...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:a2052k$91n$1...@news.panix.com...
> In article <c5o64u8pv9p9lskst...@news.hinet.hr>,
> Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
> >
> >BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
> >can be cloned. Am I wrong?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
> organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
> or a liver.
Not yet, anyhow. They are working on it, though.
Of course, Bujold used that in her book, too. Miles had a very large
fraction of his guts blown out, and a group of cloned doctors on Jackson's
Whole grew him a new set. Also, his father received a brand-new heart in
the same story.
Ray
Dan Goodman
> In article <c5o64u8pv9p9lskst...@news.hinet.hr>,
> Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
> >
> >BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
> >can be cloned. Am I wrong?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
> organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
> or a liver.
It's being worked on, and so far it looks doable.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
Brenda W. Clough
I have, more or less. It's up on the web at:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/012/3.48.html
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Marilee J. Layman
>In article <c5o64u8pv9p9lskst...@news.hinet.hr>,
>Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>>
>>BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
>>can be cloned. Am I wrong?
>
>I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
>organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
>or a liver.
Maybe someday. There's a batch of my kidney tissue being grown and
experimented on at Walter Reed.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
John McMullen
> In article <1JM08.498310$C8.35...@bin4.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
> Matthew Cline <ma...@nightrealms.com> wrote:
> >
> >I did a Google search on Irish Elk, but didn't find anything that would fit
> >in with that paragraph. Did their antlers get so big that their necks
> >couldn't support the weight of their head? Or are you saying the modified
>
> Irish Elk are extinct; they had huge antlers. If correlation was
> causation, then having huge antlers would have caused their extinction.
> Since for most people correlation *is* causation, it's widely believed
> that Irish Elk are extinct because they had huge antlers.
I dimly recall them being used as an example of Sexual Selection Gone Amok!
in high school biology--which is the context I dredged them up in--but they
weren't used as an example in university biology. I think Stephen Jay Gould
used them as an example once, but I don't really recall the article, and I
haven't unpacked all the boxes of books yet. (Largely because in the new
place we have to build more bookshelves, and I haven't gotten to it.)
If it were a real story (as opposed to a real bad story) or something
other than riffing on Usenet, I'd check first to see whether the sexual
selection idea still has any value.
Anyway, I originally meant to point out the fallacies in the idea that
any kind of bioengineering must be bad, but I digressed.
> And of course,
> that must be true, because of course everything that has gone extinct has
> had huge antlers, hasn't it.
>
> Ian
Oh, certainly. One can still see all the lovely antlers fossilized from
the bottom of the Permian sea.
(Insert appropriate marker of agreement with sarcasm here.)
John
John McMullen
> Oh, certainly. One can still see all the lovely antlers fossilized from
> the bottom of the Permian sea.
>
> (Insert appropriate marker of agreement with sarcasm here.)
Sigh. I'm having a forget-and-fire kind of day here.
I'm trying to say that I recognize and agree with Ian's point that
the large antlers may well have nothing to do with the extinction
of the Irish elk.
And right after I sent that, I realize that the parenthetical comment
can be interpreted as sarcasm applied to Ian, whose biological knowledge
is more complete and up-to-date than mine.
So I intend no sarcasm.
Double sigh.
John
Magnus Olsson
Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>Dan) wrote:
>>issue here); and another was about Evil Aliens who get their kicks out
>>of ripping parts of bodies out of their human victims and stitching them
>>on their own - because, get this, this way they get to savor endlessly
>>the pain of the person the organ was originally ripped out of.
>
>Ew. X-Files.
Or the "Gene Stealers" from Games Workshop's "Warhammer 40k" universe
- although they don't do it for kicks, but to gain the abilities of
their victims.
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Magnus Olsson
>In article <c5o64u8pv9p9lskst...@news.hinet.hr>,
>Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>>
>>BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
>>can be cloned. Am I wrong?
>
>I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
>organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
>or a liver.
If I've understood things correctly, what you could do -
theoretically, at least - is to clone an individual but only let the
clone develop into an embryo, and then use stem cells from the embryo
to produce organs. That way, you'd avoid the complication sof having
to clone complete individuals just to harvest the organs (which, of
course, would lead to some ethical considerations if the individuals
are human). What has also been proposed is to manipulate the embryo so
you get incomplete individuals - a human body without a brain, for
example, which would presumably be less objectionable to harvest
organs from.
Helgi Briem
McMullen) wrote:
>iay...@panix.com (Ian A. York) wrote in message news:<a205a2$91n$2...@news.panix.com>...
>> In article <1JM08.498310$C8.35...@bin4.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
>> Matthew Cline <ma...@nightrealms.com> wrote:
>> Irish Elk are extinct; they had huge antlers. If correlation
>> was causation, then having huge antlers would have
>> caused their extinction. Since for most people correlation
>> *is* causation, it's widely believed that Irish Elk are extinct
>> because they had huge antlers.
>
>I dimly recall them being used as an example of Sexual Selection
> Gone Amok! in high school biology--which is the context I
> dredged them up in--but they weren't used as an example in
> university biology. I think Stephen Jay Gould
>used them as an example once, but I don't really recall the article,
> and I haven't unpacked all the boxes of books yet.
Stephen Jay Gould's point was (and I think he
proved it pretty well) is that Irish Elks had
antlers that, although huge, were just the right
size in proportion to their body (allometric or
logarhithmic proportion, that is) and that their
extinction probably had nothing to with their
large antlers. For further info see: Gould, S.J. 1977.
The misnamed, mistreated, and misunderstood Irish elk.
Pp. 79-90 in Ever Since Darwin. W.W. Norton, New York.
or this website:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/artio/irishelk.html
--
Regards, Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
>
> So, arguably we could, eventually, create an organ in vitro.
That day, we all get out to celebrate and to do some _serious_ drinking,
with lots and lots of toasts to our new liver's health. :-)
Stuart Houghton
>>
>>> Back around the 1980s, I'm told, magazines were getting a lot of
>>> submissions about vampires who got AIDS.
>>Consider, though, that there are lots of other blood-carried
>>diseases that have been around for ages -- syphillis immediately comes
>>to mind. . . .
>
> Which means there's probably a story in a vampire who *thinks* he's
> gotten AIDS, but he's really contracted syphillis...
>
There is an interesting essay over at Fantastic Metropolis (rather good Spec
Fic site) entitled "Fighting Back Against Genre Laziness: Three Raids" which
knocks lumps out of three SF standards - Invisibility, Reincarnation and
Vampirism - and states in clear terms why none of these should ever be
allowed back on the printed page again.
I don't 100% agree with the author's opinions (certainly, in the case of
reincarnation he seems to have missed the point about this being *fiction* -
his thesis being 'there is no such thing as the soul for goodness sake!
stop writing about it!'), but I rather liked his take on vampires.
The suave, darkly seductive vampire is just a metaphor for syphillis - thus
the vampire was forever destroyed by the invention of antibiotics.
check it out at http://www.sfsite.com/fm/show.html?ey,laziness,1
--
Stuart Houghton
Stuart Houghton
news:MPG.16ad68c2e...@news.visi.com:
>> I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of
>> the organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by
>> itself, or a liver.
>
> It's being worked on, and so far it looks doable.
>
In a similar vein, this is straight outta Blade Runner...
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20020105/sc/japan_eyeball_dc_1.html
--
Stuart Houghton
Stuart Houghton
news:26c9d878.02011...@posting.google.com:
> - finally, in another author's tale, a scientist figures out how to
> apply modifications that will fight the modifications, but only
> untrammeled sexual intercourse will save us now.
As good a pickup line as any, I suppose.
--
Stuart Houghton
Ian A. York
>
>If I've understood things correctly, what you could do -
>theoretically, at least - is to clone an individual but only let the
>clone develop into an embryo, and then use stem cells from the embryo
>to produce organs. That way, you'd avoid the complication sof having
Yeahbut.
For most organs, this is a physical engineering problem as much as (or
more than) a biological (cloning) problem. Consider a kidney. It's
composed of many different cell types, and sure, given the right stem cell
or combination of stem cells you get grow each of those cell types. But
that's no good to you at all. Each of those cells must be connected to
each other in a precise pattern. The nephrons have to be connected to the
glomeruli, and the cappilaries must run exactly parallel to the nephrons
but with the flow in opposite directions (because the countercurrent
mechanism is what makes the filtration work). And they must be one cell
apart; there's no room for error, you can't let another cell type
interpose, you can't let extracellular matrix build up too thick. And
there must be millions of these perfected ordered combinations of many
cell types.
In theory (at least as long as we're talking SF) it's not quite that bad.
The way it works in vivo is to turn on and off the right developmental
cues at the right times, both locally and globally. It's relatively easy
(in concept) to imagine that the local cues could be intrinsic, or with a
bit of help could be intrinsic; cross-talk between the different cell
types as a self-regulating system. You still need broader cues (which are
even less well-understood than the local ones), but again one can imagine
that they could be sorted out to some extent and pumped in at the right
times and places.
So in concept it's doable, and it probably will be done eventually. I
guess the question of how easy it would be, depends on how good the cells
are at spontaneously entering the cross-talk cycle.
It would be more analagous to healing, I think, than cloning. I suspect
that the easiest way to do with would be to start with a bit of your
kidney, and then to convince the stem cells already there (or esogenously
added) that they need to repair the system. It's be a lot easier if the
structure was already there as a pattern to follow.
Richard Urwin
>In article <c5o64u8pv9p9lskst...@news.hinet.hr>,
>Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>>
>>BTW, I thought one point in favour of cloning is that actual organs
>>can be cloned. Am I wrong?
>
>I'm not sure what you mean. Organs can be cloned, but only as part of the
>organism. There's no way to clone a kidney, sitting there all by itself,
>or a liver.
Organs can be cloned, but at the moment only the uninteresting ones
like cartilage. I don't see there would be much problem in cloning
organs as such because my organs are mine, and if I want someone to
take a few heart cells and grow me a spare in a petri dish then that's
my business.
However sometime during gestation the undifferentiated "stem" cells
become differentiated. Once the cells are differentiated they will not
clone into the more complex organs.
Current research involves harvesting these stem cells from other
sources than the organ recipient and then using cloning technology to
swap the DNA. Sources of such stem cells include fetuses. Obvously,
this is a significant ethics issue.
Using these techniques it was reported very recently that a tadpole's
eye has been re-grown.
So there is a bona-fide link between organ transplants and cloning,
and one that has larger ethics issues than "just" creating life. But
it shouldn't involve cloning people, at least not in the near-term.
In the longer term (a century or two) then both of these may become
simple, well understood, procedures and it could happen that people
are cloned for spare parts in much the same way that I might phone the
speaking clock rather than go and look for my watch.
All clones are currently gestated normally, and the legal position of
humans that were cloned this way would be the same as any other human.
Plot devices aside, there is no reason to expect that the law will not
expand to follow scientific advances and so in-vitro gestation would
be recognised as soon as it was possible.
So even in a couple of hundred years it would still be murder on the
one hand and no ethical constraints on the other. If it were illegal
to phone the speaking clock I'd go and find my watch.
If fetal stem cells were still being used, then you might have a basis
for a story like "Soilent Green" (sp?) or "Food of the Gods" (AC Clark
short.) I don't think it would be very satisfying though.
Richard Urwin, Private
"No 9000 series computer has ever made a mitsake or corrubiteddatatato."
Patricia C. Wrede
Cline <ma...@nightrealms.com> writes:
>Does the Catholic Church care about the legitimaticy, or lack therofe,
>of children?
Quite a lot of the people going through the annulment program cared very much.
Hence the questions, hence the answers. Whether the Church would have bothered
to take a position if this weren't something that 70-80% of the people wanting
an annulment asked about, I don't know.
Patricia C. Wrede
Brian M. Scott
>In article <1JM08.498310$C8.35...@bin4.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,
>Matthew Cline <ma...@nightrealms.com> wrote:
>>I did a Google search on Irish Elk, but didn't find anything that would fit
>>in with that paragraph. Did their antlers get so big that their necks
>>couldn't support the weight of their head? Or are you saying the modified
>Irish Elk are extinct; they had huge antlers. If correlation was
>causation, then having huge antlers would have caused their extinction.
>Since for most people correlation *is* causation, it's widely believed
>that Irish Elk are extinct because they had huge antlers. And of course,
>that must be true, because of course everything that has gone extinct has
>had huge antlers, hasn't it.
No, no, no. 'And of course that must be true, because of course
everything with huge antlers has gone extinct, hasn't it?' Okay,
okay: the people who think that correlation is causation probably also
confuse necessary and sufficient conditions.
Brian
Ian A. York
Richard Urwin <rur...@rta.ricardo.com> wrote:
>
>Organs can be cloned, but at the moment only the uninteresting ones
>like cartilage. I don't see there would be much problem in cloning
Cartilage is a tissue, not an organ: it's a type of cell (well, actually,
cartilage is the product of a type of cell), while organs are complexes of
many different cell types, all intricately linked.
>organs as such because my organs are mine, and if I want someone to
>take a few heart cells and grow me a spare in a petri dish then that's
>my business.
But, see, there's no such thing as a "heart cell". A "heart" isn't just a
glop of smooth muscle cells. It's smooth muscle cells all within one
cell-diameter of capillaries (three or four different cell types right
there, all linked just so), and also all cross-wired with nerves (another
three or four cell types) and arranged on a meshwork of supporting tissues
in a precise pattern, so as to form the valves and so on.
Tissues are easy. Organs are hard.
>However sometime during gestation the undifferentiated "stem" cells
>become differentiated. Once the cells are differentiated they will not
>clone into the more complex organs.
Not so. There are certainly pluripotent stem cells in adults, which can
differentiate to form many different cell types. There are probably
omnipotent stem cells, too. (By the way, please pronounce that
omni-potent, to match pluripotent; not om-nip-otent, like gods.)
>Current research involves harvesting these stem cells from other
>sources than the organ recipient and then using cloning technology to
>swap the DNA. Sources of such stem cells include fetuses. Obvously,
>this is a significant ethics issue.
That's one kind of current research. There are many other lines. Work
with pluripotent stem cells is, I'm thinking, much more advanced than you
realize.