Two Short Story Recs: Themes of Arrogance and Complacency

Title: Sandkings
Author: George R.R. Martin
Where I Read It: The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

Simon Kress likes to collect exotic pets from different planets. At one point, he purchases insectile creatures known as sandkings. They come in four colonies – orange, red, black, and white – with each colony sharing a hive mind. The colonies can interact in various ways, including waging war, and they're capable of forming images of their owner (as if their owner is a god hovering over their world).

Simon becomes bored with them quickly. Rather than leave them to interact and flourish with minimal interference, he agitates them by withholding food and watching them fight over scraps. Then he begins to pit them against other types of creatures. He receives warnings that his behavior will end in disaster, and it does – after he horrifyingly drags down others with him, then meets a horrifying end himself, with the evidence of his cruelty staring back at him.

Even if, like me, you never got into George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, you should still check out "Sandkings." It's a chilling story.

Title: The Tip-Top Club
Author: Garrison Keillor
Where I Read It: American Short Stories Since 1945

Bud Swenson is a radio personality whose show, "The Tip-Top Club," has attracted many devoted fans. From the early 1950s to Swenson's retirement in the late 1960s, his fans have been tuning in for special interest stories, gardening advice, mild congenial remarks, and overall positive feelings.

Over the course of his time on the show, Swenson speaks less and becomes merely a vessel for his audience. He seems to fade away, his personality gently but determinedly rubbed out. The audience members calling in dictate the content. What they want is camaraderie and no controversy. Swenson's personal views and character aren't important as long as he gives way to them.

However, once Swenson retires, his replacement makes waves by actually having opinions and wanting to discuss books, political issues, and other cultures. He may be open and friendly, but he's met with tremendous hostility by Swenson's fans. It isn't Swenson they miss, but a platform for themselves to showcase their own comments on the topics they prefer to discuss. How they react to this new host – with a nastiness that may seem surprising coming from people who pride themselves on being nice – reminds me of different internet subcultures. "The Tip-Top Club" has attracted the best people who naturally know what's best to put on air, and they get really angry when you don't allow them to control the content.

Filling our minds with stock figures: On an essay by Terry Pratchett

For the Deal Me in 2017 challenge, I read Terry Pratchett's grumpy, funny essay/rant on the clichés of fantasy fiction, and what 'fantasy' and 'escapism' mean. He calls his piece "Elves Were Bastards," to attack the cliché of the noble elves from Tolkien.

He rails against:

... so much round-eyed worship of mind-numbing myths, so much mindless recycling of ancient cycles, so much unthinking escapism.

I like how he distinguishes between meaningless escapism vs. an experience that you learn from and take something from.

But the point about escaping is that you should escape to, as well as from. You should go somewhere worthwhile, and come back the better for the experience.

And later:

The best stuff does take you somewhere. It takes you to a new place from which to see the world.

It's also a sense of wonder not limited to fictional stories.

Pratchett's repeated use 'mindless' is key. It's inevitable that we'll retell stories, but they shouldn't be expressed in rote ways, without care, thought or imagination, not if they're to be meaningful.

This got me thinking about the contents of our minds in all respects, especially our representations of other people. It would be easy to fill up on 'stock characters' - two-dimensional representations. It makes life simpler in some ways; what to think, and the right ways to act, take on apparent clarity. At the same time, it's an unfulfilling way to live. It's also like a bad diet that poisons the health of the mind. It compromises the ability to understand complex situations, in anything from politics to personal relationships.

Stock figures are stunting. If we can imagine only the 'noble elves,' we're limited, lacking in wisdom and more vulnerable to deception. The stock figures populate a deceptively simple world, and chances are if we escape to it too much, we'll stay trapped in it. One way or another, we'll suffer and allow others to suffer without understanding complex situations and the possibilities for how to act.

Week in Seven Words #272

fixation
"What we lack is TRUTH and COURAGE!" she cries. (Her friend's reply is a low murmur.) "No, NO!" she cuts in. "COURAGE! We have no COURAGE!" (Her friend continues murmuring.) "Nothing can get done without COURAGE!"

girding
Along with packing for the trip, I need to prepare psychologically. I know there will be tension, anger and irrational arguments. Lingering grief too.

nourished
They sit cross-legged on the picnic table beneath the maple and feed each other pizza.

one-sided
It's difficult talking to people who are always so certain. They like to give me a knowing, pitying look, like they've got it all figured out and they're just waiting for me to come around, any minute now, to their way of seeing things.

released
I attach the file, send the email, and hope for an outcome that isn't terrible.

unaccustomed
When he sits by the shelves with his son on his lap and reads from the picture book, he sounds the words carefully. He looks puzzled at the bright children bouncing through the American city from page to page.

well-reasoned
"I don't like losing," he says, as the centerpiece of his argument for why I should lose to him.