The Critics’ Corner

A High Wind in a Vacuum

by Don Webb

Dreams may suspend cause and effect and attenuate one or another law of physics; for example, you may dream that you’re flying or that you’re having a hard time running or walking in low gravity. Lawrence R. Dagstine’s “Orion’s Dendrites” depicts just such a scenario, one in which memory stimulation puts Orion T. Jacobs virtually onto the surface of the moon Lebros. In a sense, Orion experiences a form of guided dreaming.

But what dreams! They’re enough to give nightmares to Hal Clement, the kindly science professor and creator of Mesklin, one of the most unusual and yet realistic worlds in the annals of science fiction.

Apparently Orion’s “dream” takes place at or about dawn of the lunar day as measured by a clay sundial:

Outside, the three-week lunar day was only minutes short of six in the morning, earthen standard time.

Orion’s dream-suspension of reality poses some problems in terms of heat:

The temperature was nearly 450°F. Higher than the boiling point of water and human blood.

Lebros is smaller than Earth’s Moon but seems to resemble it in most other respects. The temperature on the night side of the terminator will probably be about negative 150°C or so, while on the daylight side it probably rises immediately to about 107°C and may approach 123°C at the subsolar point. “Standard time,” then, must refer to sunrise, and the daytime temperature on Lebros is almost twice as high as on Earth’s Moon. However, assuming that 450° to 500°F is the maximum and knowing that the temperature range is 500°F, then the temperature on the night side of Lebros drops at most to only 50°F below zero.

Where is all that night-time heat coming from? Perhaps Lebros orbits a brown dwarf circling a very hot primary. But Lebros seems to be accumulating heat. Wouldn’t it melt? Orion might find himself not among stalagmites and in ravines but on on a ball of molten lava. More likely, tidal forces would cause Lebros to disintegrate. It may be simpler to suppose that the temperature range is actually about 800°F, more in line with that of the planet Mercury.

Add to this pressurized vacuum a gust of wind so hot and intense that pieces of metal, except titanium, of course, weld themselves together spontaneously when they come in contact.

What is a pressurized vaccuum? And where does Lebros’ wind come from? If it’s in Orion’s dreams, how real can the thing be that he’s been virtually sent to look for? Stay tuned for the conclusion!

* * *

We at Bewildering Stories sometimes need to tell readers what we’re doing, because it may not always be obvious. I think we may need to do that in the case of Viacheslav Iatsko’s “Striped Life.” The following discussion will also give you an idea of a copy editor’s typical preoccupation.

Slava Iatsko has undertaken a very ambitious project: writing a series of song lyrics in English. That’s hard enough for a native speaker, and Slava’s first language is Russian. Ye Copy Editor has pointed out to Slava some places where the grammar is a little shaky, but the author prefers his own version. In prose we might stickle, but verse can be given more latitude, even if the result is sometimes “interlanguage,” for example:

World had changed in a flash

We’d expect “The world had changed in a flash” or perhaps “My world had changed in a flash.” The lack of a determinant gives the line a “Russian accent,” but do you think that diverts the reader’s or listener’s attention from the meaning?

“Had changed” isn’t appropriate, either; the context requires the past tense, not the past perfect, thus: “World changed in a flash.” At that point, a native speaker of English will become acutely aware that the sentence has problems and will most likely insist upon “The world...” or “My world...”

As a side note, Slava remarks that he dislikes the definite and indefinite articles in English: Russian gets along perfectly well without them. And yet they’re one of the beauties of the language. It’s as though I said I didn’t like the three genders of Russian. What would be the point?

The refrain is a little obscure:

In the evening you are sad,
In the midnight to be glad.

The infinitive mood doesn’t really tell us much. How about:

In the evening you are sad,
But at midnight you are glad.

Slava makes a valiant effort to find rhymes and often does, such as “dear - revere,” “flash - bash,” and “glad - sad,” among others. At other times, though, Slava relies on assonance, e.g. “striped - white,” and “dim - in.” Interestingly, though, “dim” and “in” do not make an assonance with “esteem” and “screen,” and “once” and “chance” have only the final consonants in common.

Consider: if this is all that Slava has to worry about, then he has achieved a very high level of proficiency indeed. Oh, we may rewrite his song lyric more idiomatically and euphonically, but we can only put on finishing touches. The important thing is that Slava has given us an unusual and enjoyable song and story. No “stripes” about it: in future issues to be glad!